The Galahad Principle
by Chezzles.ze.Great
Summary: DARK!FIC. Plenty of angst. A foray out of the sit-com world. Penny is attacked and reaches out for Sheldon's help.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Just to be ABSOLUTELY clear...this is an experiment of mine. It's a dark!fic. There will probably be a distinct lack of sit-com moments. This makes this fic "AU" in a lot of ways. It's set a few years in the future and it's my attempt to change things up tone-wise. If you're not a fan of the genre, I won't be offended...so long as you don't leave me a review stating as such : )

If you like, definitely drop me a review and I'll pick up where I left off. There's a lot more to be written, but this is my first attempt at S/P angst. So! Here. We. GO.

* * *

Penny followed pure instinct when she let herself into the boys' apartment and ran toward their bathroom, shedding her clothes with lightning speed. After a moment of unabashed panic, she threw the lot of her clothes, shoes included, out the window and watched them flutter down toward the dumpster a few windows over. They missed, and her dress had gotten snagged on some twisted piece of wire dangling on the telephone wire just below the third floor windows.

"I liked those shoes," she lamented aloud, but snapped the window shut and threw the curtain across, thinking for a moment that it was silly she had leaned out the window, naked and trembling.

Turning, she pulled the periodic table shower curtain open, hating the grating noise of the rings against the metal shower rod. Bending, she twirled the knobs of the water, making sure it was good and hot before she jiggled and played with the ring beneath the tub spigot, forcing the water to hurtle up into the shower head instead. Standing back to survey her work, she slipped her hand back and felt for the doorknob, relaxing as she found the lock and punched it forcefully.

Waiting just long enough to be sure the water was hot—she watched the mirror over the sink quickly fog up—she hopped in and hissed as the water bit into her skin, leaving angry red marks as she fumbled with the knobs and turned down the heat to an almost tolerable level. She soon seized the bar of soap she could only guess was Sheldon's and started scrubbing, shaking her head at herself.

_I'm being ridiculous. This is so stupid—do I really feel unclean?_

She poured twice as much shampoo as was necessary onto her head, then squeezed the Star Wars bottle once more, emptying it. Leonard was going to give her such a confused look when he noticed, if he noticed. As intelligent and endearing as the poor dear was, he was oblivious. She wondered who would notice first—the man whose schedule she was undoubtedly disturbing by her actions tonight, or Leonard, who would be more thrilled at her presence than unnerved by her wobbly knees and watery eyes.

_If Andika hadn't left me at the club, I wouldn't have gone out to call a cab. I would have had a ride home. Normally there are so many people waiting outside. There's a line to get in. I practically had to flash the bouncer tonight. But when I went out at midnight, no one was there. Not even the bouncer._

The water turned cold after she rinsed the shampoo from her hair. Spreading in a negligible amount of conditioner, she stood with her back under the freezing cold spray and widened her eyes at the shadow on the other side of the curtain. She drew back, pressing her back against the tile wall and reached, drawing the curtain back a few inches, relaxing when she noticed it was simply Leonard's robe draped over the hook on the back of the bathroom door.

_You are pathetic. This is absolutely not the first time some over-eager douche bag followed you out of a club and pestered you. So it might be the first time you refused to play the game and he didn't leave you alone. So what?_

Another round with Sheldon's bar of Dial soap and then she rested her cheek against the cool tile of the wall facing away from the shower curtain. A tiny rivulet of blood raced down the tile where it joined in with the spray from the shower head and turned pink, disappearing as it raced over her feet and toward the drain.

_I bet I could do the scene from _Psycho_ from memory right now. Janet Leigh was brilliant, of course, but I know what she was feeling. I know the total draw of a hot shower. It feels like forgiveness from sins, like washing all my mistakes and ugliness away._

Her hand lifted and her palm pressed against the tiles, fingers still trembling.

_I'm just like Janie Kearney. She went to that kegger in December wearing the shortest skirt I've ever seen, and a halter top that definitely didn't cover as much of her C cup bosom as it should have. Once inside, the predators lowered their masks over their faces. I watched her dancing, laughing, having the time of her life. And I left early with two friends, Kendra and Paula. The next morning we all heard what happened to Janie, who'd woken up on the floor of the frat house wearing a torn skirt and Darren Haggerty's jacket._

_ No one wanted to bring it up, so no one did. But Janie squirmed in rooms full of people, knowing everyone was thinking about what had happened to her. And then one day, in English, she stood up and screamed she was sorry. She should have known better, dressing like that. I noticed she'd been wearing cardigans, sweaters, mom-pants, and boat shoes recently. I wanted to tell her no one thought she'd deserved it, that she'd asked for it, but the wild look in her eyes said she wasn't buying it. The silence had stretched on so long she couldn't be persuaded to reinterpret our furtive stares and whispers._

A heavy knock jolted her from the memory and she was both glad and startled, terrified. Biting her swollen lip, she screwed her eyes shut and didn't answer. "Hello? Who's in here?" Leonard's voice was trying to be big and intimidating, but all it sounded to her was squeaky.

Sheldon's lilting voice interrupted Leonard's next barrage of knocking. "Obviously Penny is using our shower. The door was locked when we arrived and nothing appears to be missing. Only Penny has a spare key, a privilege she frequently uses for evil." Sheldon's voice suddenly got louder, though no more intimidating. "Penny, is your shower in a state of disrepair again, or do you simply enjoy being a nuisance?"

_Oh, Sheldon, I'm sorry I'm such a nuisance. If I weren't so sure I wanted to see you tonight, I wouldn't have even come over._

Frowning at the door, Sheldon looked at Leonard, who muttered something about getting the baseball bat he kept in his room. Protesting meekly at first, Sheldon waited by the door, smelling Leonard's shampoo and hearing nothing else. Perhaps she'd left the shower on to be a bother and nothing more? He walked away from the door, intending to go knock on her apartment door to check for her, but before he got to the end of the hallway, he heard the lock click. Spinning, he saw no one standing behind the frosted glass.

The skin on the back of his neck crawled a little as he carefully made his way back to the door. Leonard was shouting from his room about calling the police. Shushing him loudly, Sheldon swallowed and opened the door a crack, peering in. The mirror was still fogged gently, but there was no steam pouring from behind the curtain, where the vague color and shape of a woman was visible. He looked at the floor and saw a footprint made of a mixture of water and blood. The crawling sensation came back as he noted the size of the footprint and estimated the size of the woman who had undoubtedly left it there.

"Penny?" he intoned hopefully, breathlessly, white knuckled on the edge of the door. No reply, just a slight gasp within the shower, one that sounded shaky and confused.

"Sheldon, what the hell?" Leonard rushed forward, looking panicked. "Don't go in there! Is it Penny?"

"Close the door, please," Penny whispered in a hoarse voice from beneath the icy spray of the shower.

Sheldon obeyed and locked the door, walking over to the shower curtain, which he yanked back as if expecting a human-sized spider to be waiting, fangs glistening. Penny was the only thing on the other side. She was huddled against the tile wall near the spigot, skin pink from the hot water turned cold, her arms collected to her sides, palms pressed against the tile, her near hip touching the wall, hiding most of her from his confused gaze.

"Penny?" This time the question did not seek to ascertain her identity, to confirm or deny is was his blonde neighbor from across the hall.

_This was a mistake. I should have told him I wanted Leonard here. I can only imagine what Sheldon will say when I tell him what happened._

Sheldon turned off the water, gripped her upper arm, and gently tugged her away from the wall. She resisted a moment, hissing as he touched a bruise, and he relaxed his grip, gently guiding her over the edge of the tub to the bath mat. Turning, he fetched her a towel, his own, and wrapped it around her snugly, lifting her arms and tucking the outer layer inside the inner layer to tie it in a sort of knot.

"Sit," he instructed without sounding too bossy, and so Penny sat on the edge of the tub, nearer the toilet, and Sheldon opened the medicine cabinet behind the mirror above the sink and extracted his first aid kid. Propping it on the corner of the sink, he started picking through the bandages, iodine, ointment, and gauze before finding latex gloves. Sighing, Sheldon snapped the gloves over his wrists and took up the necessary tools before turning to face Penny, who was wincing, slouched on the edge of the tub, her fingers laced, squeezing tightly.

Sheldon squatted in front of her and gently guided her legs apart, prodding a bite mark on her thigh. "Bite on this," he murmured, handing up a wad of cotton, which she took and bit on while he dabbed at her wound with alcohol before bandaging. Her skinned knee was next. Her palms needed only one more rinse in soap and water, so he skipped them, but did gingerly prod the fingermarks on her wrists, forearms, and upper arms. Without batting an eye he wiped blood from her neck, her lip, and a small cut just above her eye. Holding his breath, he attached two suture bandages to the cut above her eye to hold it shut, minimizing the chances of scarring.

"I'm going to have to ask for you to move your towel." Groping into the kit with the tips of bloodied gloves, he cleared his throat. "Your side had a nasty scrape on it. I need to take a look at it."

"Wrong kind of doctor," she murmured, sounding hoarse again.

Tugging the towel away, Sheldon gritted his teeth. "I spent a lot of time in hospitals, Penny. I can treat minor cuts and abrasions. If you weren't in shock, I think you'd be able to do so as well."

"In shock?"

Glancing up at her, Sheldon reached and checked the suture bandages on her face. "Yes. Made no better by the cold shower, by the way."

"You haven't asked why."

"Your middle finger on your right hand is broken and you tore a knuckle on your left," Sheldon responded easily, wiping an alcohol swab over her ribs, ignoring her yelp. "I'll venture a guess and say your opponent looks worse."

Waiting for a few moments of silence, Penny swallowed and bit her lip again. "Hardly."

Finishing with her ribs, Sheldon shut her towel, tucked her arms over it, and sat back on his heels, stripping the gloves off and balling them up in his fist. "I'm going to go get you something to wear and call the police. Would you prefer to wait in here or in my room?"

"People can't be in your bedroom."

"I have a crisis contingency plan. Please, don't argue with me. What would you prefer?" He held his hand out expectantly, expression flat. She took it, but didn't make any move to stand, simply gripping his long fingers, pinching her eyes shut.

Sheldon jumped at the knock on the door. "What the heck is going on in there?"

"Wait in here." He stepped around the bloody footprint on the floor. "I'll be _right_ back."

Nodding, she slipped back into the shower, drew the curtain, and sat in the corner under the dripping spigot and held out her arms and legs, observing his tidy, meticulous work. Every little cut was stinging, but it was as if her body were simply alerting her that things were about to get much, much better.

Sheldon exited, pulling the door shut behind him, and stood protectively in front of it. "Leonard, please."

"Is it Penny?"

"Yes," he moved away from the door, watching Leonard carefully. "Do not enter, Leonard. Trust me."

"What were you doing?" Leonard followed him instead, casting one last stare over his shoulder longingly, wanting to comfort Penny without knowing anything about her situation.

Sheldon ducked into the hallway with a small sigh and plucked Penny's spare key from the bowl by the door. "I suggest you give her some space—perhaps try to get some sleep? I'm sure she'll fill you in as soon as she's willing."

Leonard wanted to say that proposition was preposterous, undesirable, something to that effect, but Sheldon had already disappeared. So, sighing, he went to the bathroom door, leaned against it, and listened to Penny's even breathing for a moment before reluctantly going to his room to settle down and let Sheldon handle whatever crisis she was having.

Sheldon returned with almost half her wardrobe clutched to his chest, including panties, bras, and socks. He bumped the bathroom door with his elbow and Penny opened the door, staring as he dropped the lot of her clothes onto a small table beside the tub and clutched for socks and panties that went tumbling to the wet ground.

"I know how picky you are, so I brought some _options,"_ he explained and her face momentarily warmed before she selected the panties on top of the pile, the bra on top of the pile, a t-shirt for the Cornhuskers, and the first pair of sweatpants she could find. Dropping the towel, her back to him, she made quick work of getting dressed before cautiously walking toward him, chewing on her tongue.

"You're cold; I'll get a sweatshirt for you. Go sit in the living room—help yourself to anything to eat or drink." His eye twitched. "Please leave me a little milk for the morning."

"I'm not hungry," she replied softly, hoping it soothed him, but he didn't look any calmer as she poked her head from the bathroom and silently padded to the living room. Sinking into the middle cushion of the couch, she shivered and hugged her elbows. Sheldon returned with a zip-up sweatshirt, something his sister had gotten him for his birthday one year. He'd never worn it.

Plucking his phone from the coffee table, he made a motion to indicate he'd be right back, and ducked into his bedroom, dialing the Pasadena police department. They had a numerical menu with a robotic voice, and after listening to all the options, decided it was best to ask for emergency services and explain it to the operator. Gritting his teeth, he punched the first option and closed his door all but a crack, peering out to see if he could tell if Penny had moved. The sounds of their television made him relax a little and he shut the door all the way, hearing Leonard moving around in his own room.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"Sheldon Cooper here; I apologize for the misuse of this emergency hotline, but I'm quite unfamiliar with the protocol one ought to follow in this social situation." He cleared his throat and lowered the volume of his voice considerably. "My neighbor was in my shower when I arrived home tonight from a symposium on the effect of supergravity on the theory and fabric of black holes. I noticed a great deal of bodily harm done to her and observed a bite mark on her right thigh. I believe she's been assaulted and should make a statement to the authorities."

The woman who'd answered the call sighed gently. "Was she raped?"

Sheldon sputtered a moment, wanting to ask for a little warning before such delicate topics were mentioned, but no words came out. Instead he thought of Penny, his heart hammering madly in his chest at the possibility she hadn't gotten away in time at all, but had simply been forced to succumb as nature's instinct to survive overwhelmed her natural tendency to fight back.

"I'm not entirely sure," he replied at long last. "She did just take a very long, very hot shower, though. I would venture a guess that sending a team to recover evidence of that nature would be useless either way."

"Your address please."

He recited it as he had a thousand times before for takeout purposes, even though he warned them it would be carry-out and not delivery.

"Apartment 4A," he added helpfully. "She lives in 4B but will be awaiting the officers' arrival in my apartment."

"Where did the attack take place?"

Sheldon frowned. "I don't know. As I said before, I returned home from a symposium and she was using our shower. I don't know—unless!" He rotated slightly and looked toward her apartment in alarm. "No, I don't think so. I think she went somewhere tonight. I could...ask?"

"It's just helpful if you were to know now. We could send someone to the scene of the attack and begin piecing together alternate evidence paths. Does she recognize her attacker?"

Rolling his eyes despite the fact he was growing increasingly nervous, uncomfortable, and angry throughout this entire conversation, Sheldon heaved a groan of irritation. "I _told _you, I arrived home to find her using my bathroom. Other than dressing her wounds and finding her fresh clothes to wear, I haven't spoken to her, seen her, anything."

"For all intents and purposes, she should be considered on suicide watch until the officers arrive. Do not let her out of your sight except to use the restroom, and insist she leave the door unlocked when she does. The officers should arrive in about an hour—have a good night, Sir."

Sheldon looked at the disconnected call in his hands and wanted to dial again, ask for the same operator, ask her what else he could do for Penny. She seemed to know what he ought to be doing. Instead, he pocketed his phone and grabbed a stack of thin blankets from his closet, walking silently into the living room where Penny, swamped in the enormity of his sweatshirt, had tucked her legs inside the fabric and zipped it around herself. She glanced over at him, eyes flat. She knew something was up.

"I have alerted the police and they are on their way to take a statement," he announced softly, grasping his fingers behind his back, wincing at her look of dismay. "Penny, I urge you to press charges and if you know who did this to you, to cooperate fully."

Nodding, she pulled the hood up and slumped her head over her knees, wishing she'd shrink small enough she could simply fall between the cracks in the cushions and live in the simple, predictable world of Sheldon's couch. Wishing did very little, scrunching up smaller did very little, and she could feel Sheldon standing ramrod straight only ten feet away, much like the time she'd curled up and started bawling outside her apartment after that six month dry spell.

_Oh to be upset over something like that again! Wouldn't that be great?_

"This is an excellent episode of 'Star Trek.' Would you mind if I joined you on the couch?"

She peered up through the sweatshirt and felt the tears coming. "Oh my God, Sheldon...don't...don't do that, okay? I'm sorry. I'm really sorry—I should have just gone into my apartment and dealt with it..."

"It certainly would have been easier for me," Sheldon replied earnestly, but inhaled sharply, his eyes falling on his shoes. "But I'm glad you didn't. I'm given to understand even strong, capable women like you are going to need help occasionally. I'm honored to be twice called upon. I only wish you didn't have to be hurt again."

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Penny sniffed and indicated his usual spot. "Then sit. Don't ask permission in your apartment. Do what you want. It feels weird otherwise."

"Penny, no offense, but there is no way for me to behave normally right now." He lowered himself delicately into his spot nonetheless. "Everything is abnormal in every way. Not only am I tempted to engage in some sort of physical violence the _thing _that did this harm to you, but I am up far past my intended bedtime for the evening. This is all without thinking of the cleaning I'll have to do before I go to bed; I won't rest easy thinking of a bloody footprint on my floor."

Penny considered an apology, but realized he wasn't irritated with her, or the disruption, or anything. He was just as scared as she was, in his own way. Uncurling a little, she looked at him, lips parting to tell him it would be all right, and he seemed to feel it coming because his eyes fell to slits as he glanced over at her and leaned, taking up one of the blankets he'd seized, extending it to her. He was, once again, performing spectacularly under pressure.

The sound of the refrigerator kicking on startled her and she tried to laugh at herself, but a strangled sound came out instead and she sunk defeatedly into the cushion, taking the blanket from him as she curled it around herself. She looked accusingly at the hallway next, almost believing Leonard would appear, rubbing his eyes, feigning some cause for his arrival, and ask what was going on.

"Leonard went to bed," Sheldon offered quietly. "I'm sure he's not asleep yet. Would you like me to get him?"

Dropping her head onto his shoulder, she made a muffled noise and let her knees rest lightly against his thigh, holding her muscles tightly bound in case she had pushed too hard.

"Penny?"

"No, I don't want to see him right now." Biting her lip, she squeezed her legs tighter together and felt Sheldon take a deep, steadying breath. A shiver raced through her without a real cause and she rolled her eyes at herself, reaching in deep to find that confident woman who'd always stuck her chin up and "walked it off," just like father would have urged her. Another shiver.

"Are you cold?"

"I was a little, but this should be fine," she answered in a soft voice. "Just tell me if you're too uncomfortable."

Sheldon's chin tipped up just a little. "I assume you're gaining some sort of comfort from my proximity?"

Threading her arm between his and his body, her fingers clamped down on his wrist and she tried to smile at him, to stroke his ego a little—tell him he was the _best._ She wanted to tell him he was her super hero tonight. Instead, she struggled to keep the wobble from her voice as she breathlessly replied, "I feel safe, Sheldon. So...yes."

After a few long beats, he gently tore his arm from her grip and, after a moment of frantic, awkward movements, his cheeks turning dark red as he adjusted his posture, he finally draped his arm over Penny's shoulders and let the weight of it drag her down until her head was pressed against his ribs and her entire body was squeezed up against his side. Unaware, he held his breath, waiting for her verdict, palm floating half an inch above her waist. She listened a moment, to the sounds of his heart faintly beating on the other side of his chest and felt a squirmy, awkward something work its way up her spine.

"Sheldon--"

He exhaled loudly and let his palm collapse against her waist, puffing his cheeks out. "I'm always honest with you, Penny?"

"Too honest sometimes," she deadpanned, not willing to look up into his face yet.

Ignoring her slight jab at him, Sheldon picked up the remote with his free hand and adjusted the volume. "I find nothing about your body repulsive. I'm not uncomfortable. This is not _typical_ for me, but it's not unpleasant. Rest assured I'll say something the _moment_ I'm no longer willing to participate."

A surge of warmth flooded her and she squeezed his ribs just a moment before Sheldon turned the volume back up the two notches he'd taken it down and cleared his throat importantly. A slight readjustment of his legs and Penny settled, her eyelids feeling heavy. The rhythm of Sheldon's breathing in perfect harmony with his heartbeat and the cadence of Captain Kirk's lilting monologue.

Leonard, who could stand it no longer, stormed from his room to the living room only to slow his steps until he was hardly moving, grimacing at the image of Penny, her hair dripping wet, huddled and pressed to Sheldon's side while the poor man's Superman shirt slowly soaked up the residual water. Penny's shoulders shook and he leaned away from her to hand her a box of tissues, which she took and started to dab at her face with. Sheldon kept his eyes locked on the television, his hands trembling ever so slightly as he reached to fuss with the blanket draped over her or to fetch more tissues.

Collapsing into the armchair, Leonard sighed. "What's going on? Are you all right, Penny?"

At the sound of him dropping into the chair, Penny had gotten sort of stiff, Sheldon noticed, as if she were trying to convince herself it wasn't really there, just a trick of the imagination, and then Leonard spoke and she let out a helpless little squeak and scrabbled away from Leonard by burying herself behind Sheldon's ribcage, her hands fisting in his shirt.

After a moment, and it really did only last a few seconds she insisted to herself, she withdrew and caught her breath, holding out her hand to stop the barrage Sheldon had started to hurl at Leonard, and to hush Leonard from saying a word about her swollen lips, eye, or cheek.

"I don't want to talk about it, please go away."

"Can I get...you...anything?"

She shook her head and shrunk away as Sheldon's huge hand pressed across the entire expanse of her back and pushed her into his side again. She inhaled—Dial soap, detergent, dry erase markers, and an unexpected whiff of what she liked to imagine was a sunny afternoon in Texas. Penny closed her eyes, relaxing with every step she heard Leonard take as he disappeared back into his room. Several minutes passed with no sounds other than the television's ramblings. She felt Sheldon gingerly tap her on the arm, just below a bruise and above a cut he'd bandaged diligently.

"Penny? I know you probably want to punch me in the throat, but I think it's best if you don't fall asleep until after you make your statement. I don't see why this is different than any other morning—I'm sure Leonard wouldn't mind if you had some of his coffee."

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she yawned. "Coffee is probably a good idea." Her voice got very small. "I can't thank you enough."

Even though it embarrassed him tremendously, he nodded and quietly replied, "You're welcome." Standing cautiously, sliding a pillow over to hold up Penny's weight while he was gone, he made his way over to the kitchen, clenching and unclenching his hands as he went, finally relaxing as the methodical steps of starting the coffee pot distracted him. He took what was left of the milk from the fridge and left it out, next to the bowl of sugar he reserved for cereal and oatmeal, and found a stirring spoon, mug, and stack of napkins for inevitable spills.

The coffee finished percolating; she still dabbed at her face occasionally, so rather than asking her how much milk, or how much sugar, he compared the marks he'd made in grease pencil to the side of the container and added a few spoonfuls of sugar, stirring quickly and wiping up the mug and counter with a napkin, then dirty sponge. It appeared to be the same color as her usual mixtures, and so he carried it, with an additional napkin, to the coffee table and nudged her softly with an elbow; perking slightly, she took a few big gulps of the beverage before pushing it away with a grimace.

"Not to your liking?" he asked expectantly.

"No, it's perfect—the hot just hurts my lip a little."

Sheldon nodded, understanding well enough, and she reached, squeezing his hand as soon as she found it. After a pause, he squeezed back and offered her the barest of smiles, one that simply said he wasn't angry, or petulant, or anything of the sort. Just disquieted, and he was fairly sure there were only a few select people in the world who were equipped to be at ease in this exact setting.

"Penny, did this happen at your apartment?" Sheldon finally asked, unable to help himself. "Because, forgive me, but I must know as I was in there unescorted not that long ago..."

"No, I went out with the girls to this club we always go to just past the dry cleaners. They left me there—even Andika split before I could figure out where I was getting a ride. I had enough for a cab, I thought, but I went outside and there was...nobody." Her throat started to close so she cut to the chase. "It happened there."

Sheldon scrambled for something, anything, and looked up helplessly as the show went on a commercial break just as he wanted to find something 'Star Trek' related to help him naturally steer this conversation away from the dark and unpleasant. Then, unable to find the proper thing to say, he licked his lips and softly said, "If you want me to leave the room when the officers get here, I would do so."

"No, that's okay. I think it'll help to see a familiar face." She felt herself turning sort of pink, not sure where the words had come from and why she had sounded so certain. And, though she anticipated embarrassment and shame, she knew she would feel nothing but alienated if he weren't beside her.

"Are you prepared to make a statement?"

She glanced up at his impassive face and was glad to see he didn't appear too shaken at the moment. "Prepared?"

"Do you know what you're going to say?"

She took up the coffee mug again and felt her hands start to shake. "I suppose I do. I know what happened, I mean. I can just tell them that, can't I?"

Nodding, Sheldon glanced down at her wide green eyes and focused on the swelling around her right eye, his cheek twitching. "Details are of the utmost importance, of course. For instance, your attacker was left-handed."

She reached up and touched her cheek and eye with tender fingers, wincing at the shooting pains racing up her hand to her wrist. "I don't know, Sheldon..."

"I don't have any suitable splint-making supplies in my first-aid kit right now. I suppose if I were to eat a popsicle I could fashion one from the stick." He looked at the kitchen wistfully and shook his head. "No, unsanitary. Penny," his attention refocused yet again, "where are your clothes?"

"I threw them out the window."

Nodding, Sheldon tightened his grip on the remote control. "Why?"

"Because they were filthy," Penny replied tightly. "With blood and whatever the fuck was in the alley, and _him._" Anger overcame her desire to start crying this time and she embraced the adrenaline rush that accompanied an honest-to-goodness _rage._ "And I liked those shoes."

"Penny, I need to get up."

She leaned away, not wanting to be needy despite the fact she didn't want him to leave. Sheldon took the opening she gave him and stood up, pacing over to his computer, his legs feeling a little weak, like they were bending too much. He felt like a cartoon of himself as he folded his arms and scrunched his face, gazing at the bathroom door thoughtfully, hatefully.

"Sheldon?"

"I'll be right back. Wait here," he took his keys, a paper bag, and a flashlight, gritting his teeth against her wide-eyed look of dismay.

Penny huddled in the middle of the couch, not wanting to collapse into his spot while he was gone. She finished the cup of coffee he'd made for her and stood up to make another. By the end of her third cup, she'd switched over to Adult Swim and was trying to concentrate on the late-night line-up. The sound of a key in the door quickly alerted her he had returned, so she waited with bated breath for him to slip inside. She proceeded to have a mild heart attack when his arm snaked in first, clutching a paper bag. Relaxing, she watched him tuck the bag under his desk and put the flashlight away.

"It's supposed to rain tonight," he explained softly and she realized he'd gone into the alley beside the building to gather her discarded clothes. "Are you caffeinated?"

She stared at the bag. "Yeah. Alert."

"Good. You may want to get anything you'll need from your apartment. I would suggest socks first as I don't have any to offer and you don't seem to be any warmer."

She patted the couch. "I promise I'm not cold. I just want to be cozy. Sit?"

He gave her the same look he'd given her when she'd begged him to sing 'Soft Kitty' to her, like he wanted nothing more than to be given a free pass to go to sleep and ignore the situation. Still, he imagined if she did tell him she would go to her own apartment and deal with it all herself, he wouldn't have slept well. So, he conceded, he might as well stay up and make sure she didn't succumb to the shame bubbling just beneath the surface and skitter away. He could see her mistaking strength, integrity, and healing with shoving the whole ordeal under the rug.

Sitting lightly beside her, he relaxed significantly when she tossed the blanket over his lap, too. Penny paused for just a moment, not certain just what was running through her mind. A singular thought finally floated above the cacophony filling the space between her ears and she listened. Inhaling sharply, she twisted her hips, curled with her back facing the television, and snaked her arms around Sheldon's ribs. As crazy as it sounded, she really did feel safe in that instant, and feeling him as a tangible, firm body beneath her battered form cemented it.

_"I find nothing about your body repulsive."_

Sheldon didn't waste words. He didn't say what he didn't mean. He had gone to some length to remind her of this tonight. So, taking his silence to be uneasy acquiescence, she bit back her tears and slid her face into the spot between his neck and his shoulder.

"There, there," he soothed in the same lilting, robotic voice he always used. "We'll get this all sorted out."

"Right now, you're my 0, 0, 0, 0, Sheldon."

Several long beats of silence followed her declaration and she felt him swallow, her face still pressed against his neck. His hand came back up to rest on her back and he hesitated just a moment longer, face twitching. Penny released a soft sigh and Sheldon gently enveloped her in a bony hug full of angles that shouldn't have been as comforting and warm as it was. Penny laughed humorlessly and Sheldon shushed her quietly, bewildered at the myriad of conflicting emotions she was showing him.

She drew away after a few more seconds and curled back against his side, arms back at her own sides, and he checked the time. Another episode of 'Star Trek' had begun on the other channel, but he didn't change it, preferring not to stir from his spot nestled carefully against her huddled figure. Ten minutes passed before a heavy knock sounded on the apartment door, causing Penny's head to whip around, wild-eyed, but Sheldon had leapt up at the sound and smoothed his hands over the thighs of his pants, relief flooding through his veins. He checked the peephole and threw open the door with an expectant, impatient expression at the ready.

"Mr. Cooper--"

"Dr. Cooper," he corrected and stepped back, letting them in. "She's sitting on the couch there."

"Miss?" The female officer called, putting her hands on her hips. "I'm Detective June Hutchinson. Can you tell me what happened tonight?"

Sheldon collapsed back into his seat beside Penny, his body feeling fatigued at last. He gazed lustfully at her half-drunk fourth cup of coffee, but didn't move as Penny watched the two detectives make themselves comfortable in the apartment. The male turned off the television manually and sat down in the armchair closest to Sheldon, looking curiously at his Superman t-shirt and plaid pants combination.

Lifting an eyebrow at the detective, Sheldon pointedly redirected his gaze to Penny, who had lowered her face and started looking interestedly at her fingers as she wrung her hands and took deep breaths to steady herself. Sheldon opened his mouth to beg off the offer he'd made to her, to ask if he could excuse himself at the sudden bile that had risen in the back of his throat, but she gripped his hand for a moment, stealing the last of his strength, and started to speak.

***********

"I think Blondie over there is the only bite I'm gonna get tonight!" Penny practically screamed over the music into Andika's ear. "Where did Denise and Isabel go?"

"Bathroom—I'll go get them!" Andika twirled Penny once, finished her drink, and danced her way over to the bathroom, all giggles and hair-tossing. Penny shook her head, sneaking a glance at her shoes to make sure they were still as gorgeous and sparkly as before. They were.

The blonde woman to whom Penny had been referring came traipsing over, and after a very stern but polite dismissal, Penny was left to her own devices at the bar. Ten minutes stretched on and the bartender, a cute but idiotic guy with _braces,_ gave her a free drink. She didn't finish it before half an hour had stretched by and she texted Andika, then Isabel, then Denise. No answer.

"God, do I smell like feet or something?" Penny growled and looked up at the goosebumps that had started to crawl across her shoulder. She spun and spotted a man, perhaps thirty, dark hair and darker eyes, grinning at her from beside her at the bar, his finger extended like the muzzle of a gun.

"Were you just _touching_ me?" Penny demanded. "What the hell? What is your problem?"

The man just grinned at her and then shrugged. "A pretty thing like you alone here? I'm sure it's not because you smell like feet."

Rolling her eyes, Penny dumped the rest of her drink on his shoes and snatched her purse from the bar-top. Grumbling to herself about lousy friends, lecherous men, and clubs like this in the sketchy parts of town, she erupted onto the street and froze, her eyes wide. No one was outside. Not a soul—not even a car on the street moved. The bouncer had gone inside and there was no line—even the velvet rope was gone. Finally a taxi started to move up the street and Penny threw her arm out, but the light on top went out and she dropped her arm, defeated.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit!" She pulled her phone from her purse furiously and started skimming through her contacts.

"Need a ride?"

She spun, glaring at the dark-haired man from the bar, this time with a less friendly look on his face. "No, _asshole._ Just step off."

Her first mistake was turning her back on him while she dialed the cab. Her second was hanging up and putting her phone away when she realized he hadn't started walking away. She turned to give him a piece of her mind, her temper short from not enough alcohol and too much mistreatment. She turned, he punched her.

Very suddenly this was not just an annoying barfly—this was a predator and Penny was _not_ prey. She lifted her foot and brought the sharp point of her heel down into his instep and he hopped away for a moment, howling. Penny considered his size, her experience growing up with older brothers and fending off idiots in Omaha bars. She ran, but her shoes were hardly conducive for running. She made it to the side of the building when he tackled her.

She threw all sorts of tricks at him. Her elbow crashed into the place where his neck and shoulder joined, she kneed him in the groin, stomped once more on his already tender foot. She bit, clawed, slapped, punched, screamed. She screamed so loud she felt something tear in her throat and then he forced his belt in her mouth and she bit down on it out of reflex, her eyes widening as he forced a knee between her legs and bent, biting playfully at her thigh. She squeezed his head, no shame now, and he growled, clamping his teeth down tight enough to break the skin. She whimpered, but the sound was gone—her throat was sore. She relaxed when he threw her from the wall onto her hands and knees again. Gripping her wrists, he pressed her front down into the alley and started to work the skirt up over her hips.

Penny gritted her teeth, heard him panting, and waited what seemed like forever for it to happen. Instead her dress fell over her again, shielding her, and the man groaned, hopping up, hands still on her wrists, pinning her. Headlights washed over them and he ran, cursing and holding his pants up as he dodged cats and garbage cans. Penny scrabbled to her feet and sprinted to the edge of the alley, waving desperately at the cab that had stumbled upon her.

She slipped inside and slammed the door, forcing the lock down. "I need to go. Now."

"You okay?" the driver pressed cautiously.

"Just drive!" Penny snapped. The driver just nodded and made his way toward her apartment building, taking direction when she finally recited the address. She didn't quite have enough to pay for the fare, but he took what she had and insisted she didn't need to come back out with more money. She thanked him profusely and let herself into the building, hurrying upstairs to the boys' apartment. Something sticky was on the back of her dress and she wanted to throw up. So she let herself in and sprinted straight to the shower, threw her clothes out the window, and got in.

*********

"Dr. Cooper, this evidence in a criminal investigation—you aren't allowed to go gather it on behalf of the police department." The male officer, Sheldon didn't know his name as he hadn't introduced himself like the female officer had, folded his arms, giving a lecture. They both regarded the paper bag he'd brought to the coffee table like it was an impetuous child.

Sheldon blinked coolly. "It's going to rain soon."

Detective Hutchinson looked at her notepad. "We don't need a rape-kit, Penny. It would be helpful if you'd come with us to the station, though. The bite-mark on your leg...we should make a cast of it. Also, I'd like you to see some possible suspects—we've got a serial rapist in that area and if you can pick him out of a photo lineup, that would be excellent."

Penny cast Sheldon a startled look. "Oh...tonight..."

"You should go tonight, Penny." Sheldon sank into his seat and watched her massaging the injury beneath the blanket, face splotchy from crying. "We can get it all over with tonight." He looked at the ceiling of the apartment and gritted his teeth before adding, "I'll go with you."

"Sheldon, you don't have to--"

"Let's go. C'mon." He stood and extended his hand to her. "Let's go, Penny. Please."

The detectives traded a look Penny couldn't identify and she waited while Sheldon fetched a pair of flip-flops from her apartment and locked up behind her. While they waited in the hallway, Penny still swamped in Sheldon's sweatshirt, Penny noticed Detective Hutchinson staring at her.

"You're lucky you have such a supportive boyfriend. I have to tell you, most don't take an attack like this with this much understanding."

Penny just nodded and attempted a smile. "He _is_ pretty incredible, isn't he?"

*************

Leonard had just poured himself a cup of coffee, stalling as long as he could, and released a sigh as the door rattled and unlocked. Sheldon was talking to her in an unusually soft tone and she shook her head, whispering a response, and rubbed her elbow. Leonard tilted his head and held out his mug, hopefully looking at the untouched beverage as a sort of peace offering.

"We've been awake all night, Leonard; I hardly think caffeine will be helpful," Sheldon practically snapped, and then he pointed to the door. "You're going to be late to work. Tell Dr. Gablehauser I'm not going to be in today."

"Look, I know something terrible must have happened, but I don't appreciate being treated like a bad guy here," Leonard took a long draw on his coffee mug and waited.

Blinking pointedly at Leonard, Sheldon held an arm out, guided Penny to the couch, and lowered her into it. He seized their food and brought it over, glaring at Leonard. "Eat something." At her confused look, he took the lid off one of the soup containers. "Minestrone." She stared again, and he opened the other three containers. "Chicken dumpling, potato bacon, and squash. Pick one and _eat._"

"I'm not hungry—"

"Then I'm a hobbit in disguise because we just entered a fantasy world." He shoved a spoon into her hand and stepped back shakily, watching as she grumpily took the potato soup container and curled up in the center of the couch. "Thank you. You'll sleep better."

He started toward the kitchen to speak to Leonard in private and Penny spun quickly enough she nearly dumped the hot soup all over Sheldon's cushion and her lap. She gave him a suspicious stare riddled with embarrassment, caught with her hand in the cookie jar. He wagered a guess she was afraid he was going to excuse himself to bed and leave her there, on his couch, with four containers of soup and an affronted Leonard.

"I'm not going anywhere. I just need to speak to Leonard for a minute. _Eat._" His tone was stern but not unkind, and Leonard choked a little on his coffee. This was new. Not good, _new._ Not necessarily bad, _different._ And he really didn't like it. She was supposed to lay her head on his shoulder and cry into an empty container of orange juice that had stopped being a screwdriver and started being vodka over an hour ago. He was supposed to be the most well-adjusted of his friends—the one Penny went to when she didn't want silence, a lecture, or a terrible joke at her expense. Instead she stared over the side of the couch at Sheldon like she would shiver herself to pieces if Sheldon didn't come sit beside her.

_Pathetic, Penny,_ she growled to herself. _You're going to have to go back to your apartment on your own. Everyone was telling you how lucky you were he didn't get any farther, that 'no penetration took place.' You should be fine. Just eat the soup and tell him you're tired. Go back to your apartment and sleep._

Nodding, she sunk back into the seat and began to shovel the soup into her mouth. She swallowed, hardly tasting, and wished dearly she could scrape the bottom of the container with her spoon and leave Sheldon in peace. She'd already asked so much of him, and when she was too shy to ask, he offered and she knew that wasn't normal of him. He had exceptions to his rules, especially for so-called 'damsels in distress.' So, twice now she'd made him the hero.

Sheldon closed his bedroom door and stared at Leonard with less fire than before. "She was assaulted last night. The attack was sexual in nature."

Leonard choked on his coffee for a moment and hurried to swallow, hiding his cough just long enough for Sheldon to draw himself up to his full height and shake the last ounce of fatigue from his posture and his face. "Oh...my God, Sheldon! She was _raped_ last night?"

Squirming, Sheldon shook his head slowly. "According to the law, she was not. Rape under California law is forced penetration under a variety of circumstances. Her assailant was scared off before..."

Leonard shook his head, feeling sick. "So...she's okay, then?"

"I'd hardly say she's _okay,_ Leonard. It's psychologically a very difficult thing to overcome, regardless of California law. The man who attacked Penny raped six other women in the Pasadena area in the last three months. She's going to have to testify and...Leonard, she's weak right now and she's embarrassed. Don't ask her what's wrong, don't offer those ridiculous favors you do in hopes of getting her to fall in love with you, or whatever it is you think you're doing."

Leonard glared up at Sheldon and put his mug on the table beside Sheldon's bed. "Why you?"

Sheldon looked up as he bent to pick up Leonard's mug from his table. "I assume you mean to ask why she wanted my help on the matter and not yours?"

"Well, yeah!" His voice cracked a little. "No offense, but you're not the most emotionally supportive guy in the world."

Finding no complaint with the accusation, Sheldon took a step back, clutching Leonard's mug, and licked his lips carefully. "I am Penny's friend. I don't propose to know what about me she found suitable, but I know I have been doing my best to properly care for her and, according to the Women's Resource Center of Pasadena, I've been doing quite well."

Leonard's forehead wrinkled. "There's a...protocol?"

Sheldon got the look on his face he got when he was comfortable talking about a topic—usually because he'd done significant research on the matter. "SAPS. Shelter, Action, Protection, Support."

Forcing a smile, Leonard nodded. "Good. It's good she's got a friend like you, Sheldon. Is there anything I can do?"

"Go to work and give her time. I'm not entirely sure why, but she has neglected my offers to have her speak to you so far." Sheldon played with the handle on the coffee mug. "Treat her no differently than normal. Keep Wolowitz away from her. Sound good?"

A stab of jealousy surprised Leonard, but he quickly tried to drown it, knowing now was not the time to play petty games with his roommate over what Penny _should_ be doing in this situation. With a deep breath, he could reasonably find he was not equipped to put himself in her shoes and find appropriate actions. If she wanted to go into their silverware drawer and bend every fork into a right angle, that was fine. That was normal. Sheldon wouldn't even pitch a fit, simply sigh and start searching for an acceptable replacement on the internet.

His face finally relaxing a little, Leonard let his shoulders fall so they were no longer bunched at his ears. "Sure. I can do that."

"Good. Now _go_ before you're late to work. And don't forget to tell Gablehauser--"

"Yeah, yeah. Just...take good care of her, Sheldon, okay?" A flash of real concern went across Leonard's face and Sheldon felt that same snappy attitude rise in the back of his throat. The one that made him treat the man as if he had already written Penny off and couldn't begin to imagine her needs at the moment. He had a moment to consider that if she _had_ gone to Leonard, she would be here, on their couch, tired and shaky, with Leonard silently holding her to his side, trying to look stoic.

_"She's going to need some time before physical contact is going to be comfortable for her again. Just give her time and do what you can to make her transitions smoother."_

_ "I feel like it would be prudent to observe her actions earlier tonight didn't indicate she was terrified of physical contact." He replied to the psychologist watching Penny through two-way glass as she let her eyes drag over the nine faces on the sheet of paper on which her attacker lay hidden like a wolf in sheep's clothing._

_ The woman smiled and turned to face Sheldon while he continued to watch her with his arms folded irritably over his chest. "She may need comfort, yes, but as far as intimacy goes, it'd be best not to push her now. Talk to her, let her know you're patient."_

_ Sheldon cleared his throat. "I see. Well, rest assured there will be no pushing involved."_

Sheldon sighed through his nose and walked from his room. They walked, Sheldon in the lead, back into the kitchen and Leonard swung his bag onto his shoulder, steeling himself for the new image of Penny that would inevitably greet him, but when he looked over to the couch, she was asleep, curled tightly on her side, snoring softly in Sheldon's spot.

_ "It's as if she can't help but worm her way into every_ facet of my life," Sheldon grumbled, looking at her pointedly, but then he yawned and took a spoon from the drawer next to the sink and plopped down next to her, in the center cushion. Leonard smiled tightly, looked once more at Penny's scrunched frame, and let himself from the apartment, not sure what to think anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: WOW you guys. WOW. Thank you SO SO much for the wonderful support after the first chapter. I know it wasn't what a lot of you were expecting, so I have to thank you again for giving it a chance and reading through the first section. I know it's not easy sometimes.

Anyway, I've obviously been inspired to continue, so hopefully I'll be able to get this thing going and have a good head start so when classes start back up for me, I'm not swamped. Reviews are love.

**************

Sheldon's ability to swallow his tongue and smile tightly at Penny, to commend her on a job well done was hitting critical mass. She had spent four nights on their couch, each night at _his_ insistence, and retreated to her own apartment to get ready for work, to call her family, to set up appointments with her brand new therapist, and confer with the detectives building the case against a man who was only referred to as "that son of a bitch" or "the assailant."

This fifth night he lay awake in his room, which was no different than his actions the past week, except for the fact he stared curiously at the ceiling. He considered the likelihood it actually held answers for his unspoken questions. Finding that likelihood to be very small, he stood and shuffled from his room, rubbing his tired face, and wandered to his apartment door, which he opened. Crossing the hall, he tentatively raised a hand to knock and then his hand fell away and he uselessly jiggled her doorknob.

Locked. His heart seemed to slow though he hadn't been aware of it racing, and he dragged his tired bones back to bed and collapsed in it, at least content she was safe in her own apartment tonight.

*********

"Dr. Cooper, this is Dr. Kailah Picard." Sheldon's eyebrows shot up as he listened to his voicemail, glancing over at Raj conspiratorially, afraid the man bopping his head silently to Indian music would overhear whatever this highly important message was about and tell everyone.

"I'm calling you today," the voice continued, "to ask you to join Penny's session this coming Wednesday. She and I spoke for some time yesterday and the detective working her case said you had some questions about how to...best proceed to help Penny out. If you would join her Wednesday, at 11 AM, I'd be willing to answer everything I can. Just let Penny know you'll be joining her and I'll get everything squared away. Thank you."

He could patently refuse. Penny hadn't _asked_ him to join her. His name had simply come up as part of the investigation since he had housed her, fed her, and dressed her wounds. She had brought his name up because she'd somehow made the error of asking him to care for her in a time of need. Only this time, unlike her spill in the shower, others had been available to her. She'd been just as naked, and despite her history with Leonard, despite the fact months had passed since their very tedious, very _loud_ dissolution, she had let him in the bathroom and asked him to shut the door on Leonard.

And Penny knew he worked during the weekdays. She _knew_ he could just as easily toss out another attempt to make French toast on oatmeal day as he would decline her therapist's pleas for him to join her at her session on Wednesday. What he didn't know was what she hoped for, what she wanted. Why _she_ hadn't called to invite him. His mind quickly latched onto the semantics of the entire dialogue in his head, questioning whether one was invited to a shrink's office, or simply requisitioned.

"Raj," he began to speak in a conversational tone. "What is your experience with psycho-therapists?"

The loss of silence was absolutely heart-breaking, but he'd been enjoying a lot more of a gentler form of Sheldon recently. So, holding back a growl of irritation, Raj looked over at Sheldon's lifted eyebrow and bit his tongue. "I used to be in therapy, when I first moved to America."

"For your selective mutism, or because of your transition difficulties?"

"Why are you even asking, Sheldon?" Raj grumped.

Sheldon waffled a moment. Leonard had, he noted with some derision, told Howard and Raj of Penny's mishap, explaining why Howard was going to be asked to leave before she returned home from work. Sheldon had simply glowered, his ears getting a little red as Leonard muttered the real reason he'd been airing Penny's torture to Raj and Howard. _"She came over here and asked for Sheldon's help. I'm not allowed to speak to her either, Howard, so don't take it to heart."_

"Well...Penny..." Sheldon suddenly was aware he felt _very_ uncomfortable and regretted bringing it up.

But Raj's interest was piqued, and Sheldon was relieved to detect pure, unadulterated concern written on his features. "How's she doing? I'm worried about her, dude."

"Yes, we all are," Sheldon muttered. "Her therapist has asked that she bring me to her session since I've been made 'honorary caregiver' of her recovery. I just...I just don't know."

After a few long seconds, Raj shrugged gently. "I think you should ask Penny first. She might not like you being there."

"That _is_ a possibility, though she did say she preferred to have me present when she made her statement to the police, and when they made that mold of the wound on her leg." Sheldon stared out the window, ignoring Raj's intensely curious gaze. "It's the day after tomorrow, Wednesday. At 11 in the morning."

"So take your lunch break and meet her for her session if she wants." Raj shrugged again. "I don't know, dude. Right now it's got to be all about _her,_ you know?"

"I'm figuring that out, yes," Sheldon lied. The truth was, he only had questions about his pacing. Should he insist on certain things, be worried about others? How soon should he expect to see her smile return to normal? Should he be worried or indifferent that she seemed hyper-aware of her body placement and still managed to sit with her leg pressed against his?

Sensing his answer wasn't sufficient, Raj cleared his throat. "Look, in my opinion, if we water down the usual routine, she should start to feel a little more comfortable. Let's have her over for Thai food tonight. Howard will behave himself or so _help_ me I will give him a wedgie deep enough you'll see the label of his underwear in the back of his throat."

"Anatomically impossible," Sheldon retorted.

"Duly noted," Raj returned, not in the mood for argument. "My point is, we'll play vintage video games, eat Thai food, and be almost-normal. It'll be normal enough she won't feel weird, but not so normal she'll feel...I dunno, ignored? Out of place?"

"I'll invite her," Sheldon promised softly and looked out the window again. "And then we can speak about this meeting with Dr. Picard."

"Dude, Picard?"

"I know, Raj. I _know._"

*************

When Penny started crying at his apartment, the first time he'd seen her do such a thing since her tearful retelling of her attack the previous Tuesday, no one noticed right away. Sheldon, who was playing the original Mario game for the original Nintendo game system, only gave a yelp of irritation when she briefly blocked his view of the screen as she crossed in front of him and bolted into the bathroom of his apartment to pull herself together.

_"Don't be concerned with any of that right now. Just focus on getting here Wednesday so we can talk about everything else. What your body does to cope with the stress and anxiety is what your body needs to do. If it feels tense, get a massage, if it feels sad, go to a comedy movie. If you're lonely, go sit with someone. If you need to cry, sob."_

Penny had a feeling she was going to like everything her therapist was going to say. It was so easy to like someone paid to build up her self-esteem—her confidence in herself had taken a major blow and only by throwing her chin up and strutting once around the world without her crutches would she feel like she was back to reality. This whole thing was a nightmare, and interminable, and _expensive._ Penny could only afford a few sessions with this doctor before she'd have to bashfully decline. The work she had missed was already hitting her in the worst way and, to make it all worse, she had started to cry into her shrimp and rice while Sheldon and the others stabbed the buttons on their controllers and shouted insults at one another light-heartedly.

It was just...so much. Her entire body was on pins and needles, waiting for someone to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, for their eyes to all dart to one another to check to see if they'd made a boo-boo. Only Sheldon appeared to be behaving like his usual self, and even within that, Penny could see him occasionally glance over at her to reassess her well-being. The others seemed more concerned with their culpability in the event of a meltdown.

_"You've been talking a lot about this Sheldon character—I think Detective Hutchinson told me about him. She said he had a lot of questions, right? Well, if that's the case, bring him along with you on Wednesday. I'll even call him—if that makes it any easier, that is. It might help put his mind at ease, too. I know you feel guilty about imposing on your friends, but I'm sure he doesn't feel that way, Penny."_

Dr. Picard didn't know Sheldon Cooper. She didn't know how much it made him squirm and twist when Penny helplessly sent out beacons of distress that had him knocking on her door before 11:00 only to cover his throat with his arm and stare at her, his clinical gaze dissecting her tired face and sleepless eyes.

Taking a deep breath, she shook her hands violently over the sink to rid herself of this last bout of idiocy and gather her courage. _For God's sakes,_ she scolded her reflection in the mirror silently. _These are just the same four boys you've known and loved for six years. What are you doing in here by yourself? Why are you crying? Don't let that bastard take away this, too. They still love you, too. Just walk back out there and enjoy it._

A wave of calm flooded her and she smiled at herself, pushing away the frustration that boiled up at the sight of her flickering eyes. One of these days she was going to throw her head back and laugh again, just like she used to. It was impossible for a man to throw a woman to the ground and walk away with her laughter. It was particularly impossible for a woman like Penny to allow that sort of thing to happen. So she just had to be patient and let her body return to her, to let her brain heal and recognize the trauma without letting it completely dictate her way of life.

She nodded at her reflection and looked briefly at the shower before seizing the doorknob and throwing the door open, finding Sheldon leaned against the hallway as if patiently waiting his turn. "Sorry about the line—this party is really rocking." She smirked at him, trying not to look guilty.

"This is not a party, it is a Monday night. You've been crying," Sheldon replied neatly, not aiming a barb for her, simply stating the facts, as always. "Has something happened?"

The honesty on her face pained him. "No, nothing happened."

Fidgeting, he looked beyond her into the bathroom. "Would you be able to pick me up from the university in time to get to your appointment at 11?"

Penny didn't believe he had so casually mentioned his willingness to help her. Staring for a moment, she refused to answer, and then meekly responded, "Yes. We should be done around noon, so you'll be back at about quarter after. Sound okay?"

"Acceptable, of course. Is your dinner not to your satisfaction?"

"It's fine."

"Everything appears to be 'fine' these days, Penny. Everything cannot be 'fine.' I know for a fact your vocabulary consists of more interesting words than 'fine.'" He waited patiently, his expression even, flat. Penny knew better than to think he was simply irritated with her monotonous word choice. She could hear the slight tremor in his voice and tell panic would soon be setting in. The musical lilt of his voice that often cracked into the higher end of his register was in full swing—something that didn't usually happen when he made a passing observation.

She blinked and then swallowed. "You're right, but you don't want to hear about all the adjectives in my life right now, Sheldon. Please, let's just go back and play Duck Hunt or something."

He sidestepped and blocked her from padding down the hallways, folding his arms tightly, chin lowered, apologizing silently for refusing to let her pass without a legitimate, Sheldon-like concern. "Penny..."

"I had a nightmare last night, that was terrible. My mother called me again today, and that was mortifying. She told me the whole family back in Omaha knows and they want me to move home—_that_ was awful. Breakfast was fine. I went to work and a little boy cried when he saw my black eye. He called me ugly and that was almost funny, but then it was horrible because his mother said it was probably just another case of spousal abuse."

Sheldon started to interject, a sadness on his face that hinted at sympathy. Penny ignored him and barreled on.

"My boss said he wasn't sure if I should come in the rest of the week, or at least until my face heals up—that was embarrassing. I didn't eat at lunch and spent the rest of my shift starving. My car wouldn't start up right away—frustrating. I was a dollar short on gas on the way home—infuriating. I took a bath when I got home—relaxing. You knocked on the door to invite me to dinner and it scared me at first because I didn't expect you. When I saw you—that was good."

Standing up a little straighter, Sheldon licked his lips and realized he had nothing to say.

"So, overall, Sheldon," Penny inhaled wildly, feeling dizzy, "my day was _fine._ Dinner is _fine._ Crying in your bathroom is _fine._"

"Penny," Sheldon blurted, already blushing as he unfolded his arms and held them a few inches away from his sides, looking almost like he was impersonating a penguin, "if you want to hug me, go ahead."

Her focus snapped back to him, crashing back into his apartment abruptly. "What?"

"If you _want,_" he repeated slowly, eyes on the ceiling, "you may hug me."

She wanted to snap at him to stop being such an idiot, to be offended at his assumption she was breaking down, needed help. But she couldn't turn away his offer. Before any of these thoughts connected, however, she stepped forward, slid her arms between his penguin-wings, and hugged him to her, burying her face in the middle of the meaningless arrangement of colors and symbols on his chest. He settled his long arms around her shoulders and patted gently, only pausing when she inhaled sharply, her lungs rattling. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling fresh tears, and Sheldon hushed her, sounding like what Penny imagined his grandmother must have sounded like. When she finally looked up, Sheldon gave her his best approximation of a comforting smile and extended an arm toward the living room.

Penny burst out laughing at the oddly endearing way he managed to infiltrate the sadness and even it all out. Sheldon, meanwhile, puzzled over the unbalanced equation in his mind. _She used ten words all indicating a wealth of bad fortune today. She used one neutral descriptive word, and one positive word pertaining to my invitation to her to join us for Thai food and vintage video games. How does her day balance out to 'fine' if she's telling the truth?_

"You're the best, Sheldon." She shook her head and slipped past him into the living room, wiping her tears with the sleeve of her shirt. Sheldon winced, reaching into the bathroom for a handful of tissues for her, and bit his lip. He was going to have to compile a list of questions to ask Dr. Picard on Wednesday.

****************

Sheldon sat in the waiting room of the therapist's office for the first thirty-five minutes of Penny's hour-long session filling out what he considered to be a thinly veiled survey which appeared to test both his psychological competency and emotional development. He knew the correct answers, of course, but decided this was not a 'pass-fail' sort of test and answered honestly, hoping his 'unresolved childhood issues' wouldn't make him unqualified to continue to be Penny's reprieve.

As he filled in the final section of the questionnaire, Dr. Picard opened the door to her office and smiled warmly at Sheldon. "Come on in, Dr. Cooper. We're ready for you now. Thank you again for taking time out of your day to join us. Penny was just telling me about your line of work."

"She didn't tell you I was a rocket scientist too, did she?" Sheldon asked, thinking immediately of his sister, who never bothered to learn the details of his work life. There was a reason their friends were often surprised by the appearance of the twin sibling.

Picard smiled, clearly amused. "No. You work at Cal-Tech as a theoretical physicist. Your specialty is String Theory. Come in and have a seat."

He handed her his questionnaire, which she folded without looking at even the first answer. Suspicious, he entered the plush office lined with hand-made canvas paintings and stress relief candles. He spotted an electric fountain making soft bubbling noises designed to relax and calm emotional distress. Penny, sipping on a huge mug of coffee, was thumbing through a small, pink booklet with a picture of a whistle on the front.

"There are a few things the three of us are going to talk about for a while, and then Penny will wait outside so you can ask any questions you may have." Picard rearranged useless papers on her desk and laced her fingers together, resting her chin on her steepled knuckles. "I have suggested a self-defense course—a sort of active stance to help remove guilt, shame, those sort of negative emotions we try very hard to push away when we're finally able to admit the attack wasn't our fault."

Sheldon found her use of "we" and "our" unnecessarily amusing, but hid his smile, hovering by the opposite side of the couch. He looked at the windows, the small gurgling fountain, and Penny's body huddled in sweatpants and his hooded sweatshirt.

"Here," she slid to the other side of the couch and he lowered himself into her seat, wiggling a moment before deciding it would be an acceptable spot. She patted his knee, smirking into her pamphlet as she read on.

Picard cleared her throat. "Dr. Cooper, honesty is your strong point. Penny has told me numerous times over the phone and today how important your input is to her. She believes you are sometimes the only person who tells her the truth. So, tell me...how has she been recently?"

Sheldon's mouth opened immediately and he regurgitated her perplexing answer of late, "She tells me she's 'fine.'"

"But how _is_ she?"

He frowned. It was as if Beverly, Leonard's perfectly clinical, skeptical mother had been born to a pair of free-love hippies and wanted to find his brain chemistry through hugs and soft grunts of understanding rather than brain scans and spinal taps. While not his cup of tea, it was exactly the sort of thing Penny enjoyed. Comfort of the soul, which she wanted to believe was real so much it actually made Sheldon smile a little. In no other person was such naivete amusing. It had taken years of watching her delight over the smallest 'Age of Conan' victory to change his simple irritation into this complex, _affectionate_ feeling, but he wasn't the least bit afraid to admit it: Penny was important to him, an established facet of his life. Thus was the reason he sat in an unfamiliar office in a part of town he rarely visited during his extended lunch break, discussing Penny's assault with a perfect stranger.

He reached for his wallet and produced a picture of the five of them taken winters ago when Penny had gotten a carefully preserved "Medi-Freeze" box in the mail the size of a rather large cooler. Inside she'd shown Sheldon and Leonard 52 perfectly formed snowballs made in her backyard, packed by her brother, and shipped from the nearest hospital using state-of-the-art organ transplant containers. The snowballs, tightly packed from dense, beautifully white snow, were kept a secret in her apartment until Raj and Howard called from outside the building to complain that no one had left the front door propped for them.

So the three of them arrived, armed with Penny's cooler, and they'd had an honest-to-God snowball fight in the middle of a Pasadena winter. They had screamed, strategized, called each other names, and collapsed in a wet heap in the hallway outside their apartments, chests heaving, overcome with the simple pleasure of sharing a little bit of Nebraska with Penny, who'd been at her wit's end. Sheldon had set up the timer on his camera, propped it on a folding chair from Penny's apartment, and collapsed back against the wall beside his door, waiting for his shoes to dry. Penny had chosen that exact moment to sling her arm around his shoulders and Raj's and throw her head back into a laugh that got the four of them going, too, and the timer went off, cementing that moment onto the memory card of his Nikon camera forever.

Looking at the still frame for one moment too long, Sheldon slid the photo across Picard's desk and drew back, steadfastly ignoring Penny's curious expression. "She has not attained that level of happiness since the night of her attack."

"Dr. Cooper--"

"She used to have a moment like this at least once a day. It's not typical for her to have such a profound lack of..._joy._"

Penny craned her neck, finally seeing the picture Picard was regarding with a soft smile. "You keep that in your wallet?"

"It was my first snowball fight, Penny."

"You made _prints_ of that?"

He felt crazily, uneasily defensive. "My memory card needed to be cleared out for Comic-Con."

"Comic-Con is in the summer, Sheldon."

"I rarely dump photos; it just so happens that time of year I usually empty out my card and it didn't seem right to simply delete it—it was the only photo of the occasion."

"You have a 4 GB memory card—you've _never_ filled that thing." Penny leaned and snatched the photo away, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. "How long have you had it in there?"

_Two years, six months, and fifteen days._

Dr. Picard cleared her throat loudly. "You miss her smile, Dr. Cooper?"

His head snapped up, the attack coming from all sides now. "Penny's optimism is part of her personality. She's simply not herself when she's not in a good mood. Regardless of her insistence that she is 'fine,' she is not. She has nightmares, panic attacks..."

"These are wonderful facts, and useful, don't get me wrong." Picard watched as Sheldon took the photo back from Penny and slid into his wallet, behind his learner's permit. "Tell me something else about her behavior recently. Something less...informative."

Bewildered, Sheldon glared over at Penny, accusing her of wasting his time, but she was immersed in the pink booklet again, a slight smile touching her cheeks, making her wet eyes glitter with something close to the _joy_ he'd been describing to Picard.

"She's afraid I feel imposed upon because she requires outside assistance for the time being. Like the time I leant her money, or when I offered to let her sleep in Leonard's room while her sister visited," Sheldon replied quietly. "She repeats over and over again how she doesn't want things 'to be weird between us.'"

"And are they?"

"Goodness, no." Sheldon sat back and pressed the Velcro catchments shut on his wallet, smoothing them with a finger thoughtfully. "Despite my attempts to assure her I would not stand for something which made me obviously uncomfortable or unhappy, she continues to soldier on as if the sheer force of her will could drag her out of a completely understandable if not entirely mystifying depression."

"Elaborate for me."

He looked at Picard as if unimpressed with her open-ended questions entirely. "I have no idea what she is feeling. The closest analogue I can find is my own experience with bullies as a child. My boundaries are larger than hers, physically speaking. I know what it's like to feel offended—violated in some ways. But not the way she has been...harmed. Any method she may be using to cope with her feelings must be considered normal in my eyes. If her response to the situation were to sign up for ballet lessons, that would be acceptable."

"And if you needed to drive her to ballet?"

"I don't drive," he answered dutifully, adding after a pause, "except in emergencies."

Penny closed the booklet, her cheeks pink. "Dr. Picard, maybe--"

"Penny, what was it you told me that you said was so important? You say he doesn't mince words—that's obvious. That he's honest, he assumes, he talks to you as if you're a 'brilliant scientist' while making sure to remind you you're a waitress and making no significant career moves..."

Penny stared hard a painting on the wall to her right, trying her hardest not to see Sheldon's lean figure. "I don't remember."

"It's important _you_ say it."

"Dr. Picard, I know him, okay?" She felt odd speaking about him as if he weren't in the room, but his discussion with her up until that moment had gone exactly the same way and she felt oddly at peace about it, so she barreled forward, still staring at the reprint of a William Blake painting on the opposite wall. "Please."

"Penny, you have to trust me. Just tell me what it was so I can prepare for next week. You can leave in five minutes, I promise. Then Sheldon can ask me all the questions he wants." She smiled at Sheldon's relieved expression. He produced a list of neatly written queries from his other back pocket and she stifled a laugh behind a small, thin-fingered hand. Her chestnut hair seemed intent on falling out of a loose bun and Sheldon noticed Penny had gone for the same approximate look.

"He told me nothing about me repulsed him," she sighed the words out, rubbing her arms, forcing circulation into them.

"Nothing about you?"

"He said my _body_ didn't repulse him. And it stuck out to me because he's got personal space issues, okay? And the night it happened, he let me grab onto him like a giant teddy bear and he only asked me to let him stand up once. He sat with me while I cried _rivers_ onto his t-shirt and relived the the whole stupid thing and I just..." She lost all her steam and Sheldon felt an odd crunching in his chest, like his ribs were collapsing over the spot where his lungs fell away to make room for a Grinch-like heart that was growing too large for his own good. He looked at his carefully constructed list like it was a foreign language he'd never master.

"Thank you. Go ahead and wait outside."

Penny was up and out of her chair in a split second, racing toward the waiting room in another. The minute the door clicked softly shut again, Sheldon wiggled in his seat and looked up at Dr. Picard, feeling akin to a child awaiting punishment from the principal.

"Do you see the significance?"

He glowered gently. "Your question, phrased in such a way, indicates a level of complexity I probably haven't mastered yet. It'd be best if you explained rather than leading me any further."

"Fine," Picard replied in a long tone, sitting up a little straighter. "As an aspiring actress and beautiful young woman, Penny has developed a strong connection to her body. Her work is based on her appearance. When her skills have failed her in the past, she has always been able to rely on her body. She has many talents, of course, but she has always felt consistently proud of the physical aspect. Understand?"

"She _does_ tie a fair bit of her self-worth to her weight and appearance," Sheldon mused, glancing back at the door.

"In her attack, her body enticed a man, incited violence against her, and was used as a source of unwanted sexual contact," Picard continued, her tone taking on a savage reality that jarred Sheldon from a mildly pleasant place of remembering frustrating conversations with Penny over the years. "This objectification wasn't used for her benefit, and she's having a bit of a crisis over the fact she has based so much of her identity on her physical body. So, your presumed-honest comment that her body doesn't repulse you was...unexpectedly helpful."

Sheldon didn't reply.

"She said once upon a time she 'really let herself go' and went days without showering, found snack-foods in her hair, and wore nothing but yoga pants and sweatshirts for several weeks and you saw almost no difference in her."

Sheldon held his wallet out feebly. "But...it's not those ridiculously small blouses she wears, or copious amounts of make-up...the photograph..."

"Just do me a favor and keep doing what you're doing, okay? Because, even though you feel like you need a set of rules to follow, there aren't any specific rules. The more I get to know Penny the more I'll be able to tell you what she needs, but right now, you're the authority. I'll do my best to answer that list of yours, but I can guarantee you'll have more solutions than I," she finished, folding her arms with a satisfied smirk. "So, shoot."

Finding no response yet again, he unfurled the list and decided it was best to use his time as best he could and get out of this doctor's office and back on his way to Cal-Tech before he lost the loose grasp he currently had on the situation.

"First, I want to know why she approached me and not my roommate Leonard, and why she didn't want to speak to him or tell him what happened."

"Based on our discussion today and my understanding of this Leonard person," Picard frowned distastefully, "it's because you were the favorable choice. Leonard treated their relationship as a comfortable friendship in which sexual favors were traded between two compatible though not necessarily romantically inclined persons. His image of her can be tarnished; your image of her is fairly consistent. You haven't disappointed her like he has."

Nodding, Sheldon skimmed his list. "Will I be expected to force her 'out of her comfort zone' in the name of recovery?"

"She'll start to want to do a lot of things on her own as time goes on. Until then, wait for her to ask for it, and then, if you want, help her." Picard shrugged. "Play it by ear. From the sound of things, you're more likely to ask for favors, am I right?"

Ignoring the last portion of her answer, Sheldon continued. "I'm given to understand she may seek physical comfort. Should...should I be offering any?"

At her long silence, he hazarded a glance over the paper he was studying and found her smiling gently at him, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Finally having his undivided attention, Picard drummed her fingers on the desktop.

"She'll approach you when she wants it. For her, the need for physical comfort is instinctual. If you remind her you're willing to help her as she goes through her recovery, it'll make the transition easier. I expect the occasional pat on the back, hug, or squeeze of the hand won't terrify her."

Realizing too late how he might have sounded, Sheldon blushed. "I have no interest in pursuing a sexual relationship with her—that's not what I'm inquiring about."

"I'd say," Picard's tone suggested she had decided to ignore his disclaimer entirely, "you should be aware of different categories of intimacy. There are a select few people who will be allowed the kind of access you're talking about. She's not in an emotional place where casual sex is an option for her. It'll graduate from establishing connections—hugs and hand-squeezing—to foundational support."

"Foundational..."

"She'll sigh, close her eyes, smile a little."

"And then?"

Picard lifted her eyes to the ceiling. "She'll open herself to less guarded interactions. She'll kiss a close friend on the cheek, hold someone close and feel comfortable if he puts his hands on her hips."

The discussion felt dirty, but Sheldon thought again of her arm slung around his shoulders in the picture in his wallet. "And she'll start to smile?"

"Oh, most definitely. She's survived and she's strong—she knows that. It's getting through this part that's hell. But eventually you won't have to miss her smile anymore and she'll want someone to kiss her on the mouth again, be ready for intimacy, want to be seen as beautiful."

"And I can help her by...doing what I'm doing?"

"Absolutely," Picard assured him, looking at her watch pointedly. "Your time is up, Dr. Cooper, but feel free to call me anytime with any further questions." She produced a business card and handed it to him, leaning back in her chair as he stood up.

He tucked the card into his wallet, wincing distastefully at the clutter starting to accumulate inside. "Well, thank you...Dr. Picard."

She had already gone to her paperwork for her next appointment, but she seemed amused with his careful pause, and stabbed the button her intercom, connecting her immediately to her secretary in the waiting room. "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."

Wild-eyed and breathless, Sheldon exited her office, smiling stupidly at the sly, utterly _perfect_ reference the good doctor had just made and blinked stupidly at Penny, who bounced out of her seat with a suspicious stare. He reached, took her hand, and squeezed; he was in a helplessly good mood as her look of anxiety faded. Collecting her purse, she put her hand on his back and guided him out the front of the building, muttering something about stopping for ice cream to give him a reason to have "that dumb smirk" on his face.

******************

Perhaps his most infuriating trait was his thoroughness. Penny had become aware after her third week of self-defense classes that Sheldon was taking notes on her mental state. She was aware he had become Dr. Picard's confidante, though when confronted with such an accusation, he calmly reminded her she had doctor-patient privilege and it was a one-way street. He simply wanted to help out in the only way he knew how.

She met with Detective Hutchinson over coffee on a Saturday morning to be candid about her reintegration with her social circle. She showed off her knew moves and faithfully recited all the better tips—the ones that taught her how to _avoid_ situations where she'd even need to fight back.

"The best thing I can teach you is how to make sure you never need to use anything you learn out here," her teacher had told the class last week when he stepped out onto the gymnastics mats to demonstrate yet another way to knee a potential attacker in the groin.

Penny saw her errors clearly, and accepted everyone's claims she was still not at fault. She had let go of all responsibility for her attack in every way she could conceive. She still had nightmares and she was jumpy, soft-spoken, and decidedly frail-looking, but Sheldon assured her she was doing _well._ Not fine, but _well._

They arrested the man responsible for her attack on a Tuesday night, while she was serving the boys their dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. They called to apologize in advance since it was pretty clear they had jumped some sort of proverbial gun and would likely not be granted a request to have him remanded to the nearest jail. Woefully, she accepted their request to post an officer at her workplace and at her apartment in the event he was released on bail.

Tonight, as Sheldon fiddled with her seatbelt buckle before sliding it into the catchment by her hip, she saw he'd tucked his notebook of her life under his arm. "How am I doin', Doc?"

Looking up at her with a bored expression, Sheldon sat back and observed the now-functioning seatbelt he'd just fixed. "Given your blatant disregard of traffic laws and safety regulations, I'd say mediocre at best."

She slid the keys from the ignition and slipped them between her knuckles expertly, holding them a quarter of an inch from his enormous baby blues. "Careful, meat-puppet."

Sheldon slid away from her and into his own seat, buckling up delicately, looking just a little miffed. "I can always shop at another time, Penny."

"No!"

He looked over at her sharply and she stuffed the keys into the ignition, starting the car on the second try, chewing her tongue. Purely reflexive, utterly revealing. She chanced a look over at the entrance to the building and saw Leonard still waiting for them to depart, holding the door ajar. He waved.

Penny waved back, faking a brilliant smile, and backed out of her spot, gritting her teeth. "He's just _so_ thrilled he doesn't have the pleasure of escorting you through the produce sections tonight."

"Again, I can always shop at another time. We're not necessarily in need of grocery shopping yet. Would you prefer I go inside and get a jump-start on my 'Dr. Who' marathon instead?"

His tone told her he knew the answer but knew more that she wanted to spar with him, to do something familiar and normal. It wasn't entirely normal for him to quietly nod and allow her to make these soft, teasing jabs at him. She would inevitably break down, roll her eyes, and tell him to shut up so she could have a few minutes of silence on the way to the store.

Obligingly, she rolled her eyes. "No, Sheldon, I would not _prefer_ to banish you from my car. Just, pick a game so we can get this over with."

"Very well," his voice brightened and he looked immensely pleased with the situation as he carefully leveled the book on his lap. "How about actors and actresses? You seem to excel in that category."

"Until you bring up that guy from the _Alien_ movie I don't even know how to pronounce," she grumbled. "Can we agree to no outlandishly obscure references?"

"I cannot," Sheldon stiffly replied. "We have very little middle ground to properly define 'outlandishly obscure.' There's no point."

"Fine, I'll go first." Penny sighed and acknowledged the fact she'd be bending to the will of her addictions and buying several chocolaty delights at the market this evening. "Paula Abdul."

"To be clear, are we taking the first or last letter of the surname?"

"First letter of the last name," Penny closed her eyes briefly.

"Adam West."

"Wil Wheaton." She slitted her eyes at him and smiled triumphantly at the tic wildly twitching on his cheek.

Scrambling for something so Penny wouldn't declare an early victory, Sheldon concentrated his entire being on finding a movie he'd seen recently with an actor's name beginning with a W. Finally, he exploded, "Will Smith. From _Men In Black._"

"Sam Raimi," Penny replied effortlessly.

"Ronald Reagan."

"Rita Rudner."

"Robert Redford?" He was losing his gusto going over so many of the same letter all at once. He looked at her with a half-wince on his face, expecting to be informed he had lost this round.

She smirked over at him. "Robert Pattinson. Happy?"

"Penny."

"What?"

"No, _Penny._ You're an actress." He looked over at her curiously, wondering what complaint she could possibly have over his answer.

After several long moments, she tightened her grip on the steering wheel and cleared her throat. "You can't think of anyone else?"

"Paul McCartney, Paul Newman, Patrick Stewart, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Poppy Montgomery—to name a few."

"Sheldon..."

He looked out the window at the passing scenery with sudden, keen interest. "If we'd decided the category was 'physicists,' you would have offered up my name at the first opportunity, would you not?"

"Because I wouldn't know anyone else!"

"Sure you do! Who was the first American woman in space, Penny?"

She gritted her teeth but helplessly answered, "Sally Ride."

"See?" Smug, proven correct yet again, Sheldon shot an arrogant grin to the street as Penny veered into the left lane to avoid a car turning right at the light. To his credit, he only had a mild heart palpitation at the maneuver.

"Yeah, Sheldon, I can think of another, but chew on _this:_ Sally Ride departed Earth on June 18th, 1983. June 18th is?"

Sheldon stared quizzically at her, pretending to be clueless.

"Don't you pretend you don't remember something I made you read, Mr. Eidetic Memory!"

"Paul McCartney's birthday," Sheldon grumped, his victory stolen.

"Okay, so M to me," Penny announced to no one in particular. "Molly Ringwald."

Sheldon let out a cough of surprise at her sudden cattiness and bunched his hands into fists, brain hurtling along, desperate to find _something_ he could use to keep her from winning this time.

"Stumped yet?"

"Roger Moore—_no._"

"Meg Ryan—how 'bout now?"

"Ryan Gosling—still no."

"You're starting to impress me, Dr. Cooper." Penny paused, thinking hard, and then smirked yet again. "Gina Ravera."

"I'm challenging--"

"She was in _Soul Food._ And _The Great Debaters._"

All sorts of useless synapses were firing in Sheldon's brain. He tried using every memory trick in the book and discovered this was an invigorating power struggle. He wouldn't allow Penny to win.

"Russell Crowe."

"Too easy—Christopher Reeve."

"The game is _not_ to find every celebrity whose surname beings with an R, Penny," Sheldon needlessly reminded her, hoping nonetheless that she didn't give up their game-within-a-game.

"I know. So, you got one, or have I won?"

"Robert De Niro, and _no._ You aren't going to win."

"Do I go off the D or the N?"

"Does it matter?" he asked tiredly.

"Daniel Radcliffe or Nicole Richie. Doesn't matter."

"Ryan Reynolds," Sheldon challenged, having kept this one for some time, hoping to throw it out at her when she was running low on reserves herself.

Cursing silently, Penny put on the turn signal and looked away. "Rosario Dawson."

Sheldon drew an enormous blank. Frowning heavily, he pinched his eyes shut and made fists at his sides. After Penny had gone through another light, she made a grating noise, indicating he'd run out of time, and stabbed the button on her radio to celebrate with music of her choosing. As soon as the radio came on, she released a loud cackle and started to sing along.

_David Bowie...an actor and musician. How very fitting for Penny's victory song._


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Again, you guys are AMAZINGGGG

I wish I had the time to give each and every one of you a big fat internet hug. And let me tell you, I'm a pretty great hugger.

I'm hoping to get out another chapter before I have to get back to the grind. See, and this is the interesting part, next week I'll be going to Frankenmuth, Michigan (I know, I know...WHERE?) to participate in a snow-sculpting competition. Soo, for sure next week there will be some dead time with no fic. I don't like no fic. I like MOAR FIC. So I'll try to get lots and lots of it written ahead of time. We've got a journey to make.

Reviews are love and I'm in love with all of you.

******************

Once inside the store, Sheldon took a moment to glance over Penny's list before extricating himself from her silent gloating. He found himself in the dairy aisle, plucking up yogurt cups and other edibles, trying to remember her preferred brands, flavors, and fat levels. He had half a mind to call her, still debating over two different bagel types, but refrained. This bit of independence would likely be a small wonder. Perhaps, he considered, she might not need him to come next time.

Not that he minded these outings. Usually her invitations fell on rather opportune moments, and he appreciated the ride, the conversation, the favor. Tonight, as darkness started to fall on the streets, he knew it was less about an invitation of convenience and more about a legitimate worry for her safety. He wouldn't linger in the dairy section. Snatching up strawberry-flavored cream cheese, he started back over to the bread aisle, repeating in his head a short mantra of things he needed to remember for his own use.

_Cotton balls, dental floss, batteries. Cotton balls, dental floss, batteries. Cotton balls, dental floss—_

When Penny spotted him, she was wedged between her cart and the bottle return machines while a man, doing his best to appear interested in the canned peas he was holding above his basket, glanced up at Sheldon and dismissed him immediately. Penny, going over the two items in her shopping cart, was practicing her self-defense course mentally, planning an escape route and possible plan of attack were the man to encroach on her space any further.

Sheldon approached, seeing her eyes lock onto him frantically. They were the only three in that aisle, but from her point of view, the man could easily shove her into the bottle return room, slip inside a beer cooler, and disappear with her. The wrath on her face was plain as he dropped her purchases into the basket and dusted off his hands. As soon as they were up to snuff, he blinked at her, wondering if the man had done anything more than meander toward her, but it seemed irrelevant. The threat was real to her; whether it occurred to the stranger examining the canned peas didn't matter.

Penny seized Sheldon's hand and laced her fingers in his, giving him a sappy, overly dramatic smile, forcing a sparkle into them she reserved for her most lovesick moments. "There you are, Sweetie! I almost went to the front desk to have you paged!"

"I went to grab the yogurt hoping to meet you somewhere in the middle. Now we'll have to hurry to make sure these don't reach room temperature before we go home." He glared distastefully at her lengthy list. "Where to next?"

She laughed hollowly. "Oh, Sweetie..."

Catching her drift, he tightened his grip on her hand and started to pull her away. "You're almost out of toothpaste, _darling._ Let's go before we miss more of your enthralling late-night programming."

He took the cart in his free hand and pulled it behind them, taking only a moment to observe the disappointed countenance of the man abandoning the canned peas as he wandered back toward the muffins and bagels. To his surprise, however, Penny didn't release him as they entered the health and beauty section. She swept a bottle of shampoo and a stick of deodorant into their cart mindlessly, staring straight ahead, and Sheldon found himself pulling her along, keeping her on track. By the time they'd picked up everything on both lists, he was certain the yogurt's temperature had fallen dangerously.

"Penny, my hand is starting to get clammy," he murmured shyly, not loosening his grip all the while.

Sliding closer, Penny shook her fingers free and smiled up at him, all teeth and sunshine. "Sorry. Lost track of time."

She found her keys while he unloaded the cart and he spotted two new additions to her Omaha keychain: a miniature can of pepper spray and a serious looking whistle that jangled noisily against everything else. They carried the groceries to the car parked under the streetlamp lighting their section of the parking lot and loaded them silently before she slid into the car and put the keys in the ignition. Sheldon had just opened his mouth to challenge her to a fresh round of the game they'd started on the way here when she collapsed over the wheel, banged her palms against the dashboard, and released something between a scream and a sob.

"It's pathetic, it's _fucking_ pathetic!" she wailed, not expecting a response from her stricken passenger. "I had a left hook that could have crushed that bastard's jaw—if I hadn't been wearing those shoes and that dress, Sheldon..."

"Just because an elephant can overpower you doesn't make you weak, and just because he's a man doesn't make him stronger than you," Sheldon smoothly stole the conversation from her, sounding squeaky despite his certainty. "These hypothetical scenarios serve no useful purpose in your recovery or your imagination, Penny. Start the car."

"I could _kill_ him!"

"As could I, now _please!_"

"No, I want to figure out why I just ran away from that guy in there when, any other night, I would have let him ask me for my number! He wasn't...he wasn't going to hurt me." In the pause that followed, she pulled her head from the wheel and looked dumbly at her dark speedometer. "I don't _think._"

"You don't know for sure either way," Sheldon reasoned, wondering if now was the appropriate time to reach and squeeze her hand again. "Unless you've developed telepathic powers, you'll never know. The best you can do is plan for the next occasion this might happen. Penny, Dr. Picard says you can only take this one day a time for now. You have a lot to work on, and not just because of...what happened. Trust and safety are things most humans spend their lives developing."

Penny wiped her nose with the tissue Sheldon frantically offered from the packet he found in his pocket. "Yeah, the worst part about therapy is figuring out not all my issues are coming from...well, _this._"

"Well, why would they?" Sheldon asked, genuinely puzzled.

She had enough of her left inside to give him a watered down death-glare. "You. Are. Ridiculous."

Rolling his eyes, Sheldon readjusted himself delicately in the seat of her cramped car. "Penny, to say that your fear inside was based entirely off a fluke accident that occurred due to no fault on your part is to say your attacker completely robbed you of your eternal optimism, your _smile,_ your _everything,_ and that's patently not true. It may feel like that, but I'm given to understand, thanks to Dr. Picard, that no one person can take these abstractions from a person."

She stared.

Flustered, Sheldon continued. "They are part of your identity, and that has not changed. This is," he hated the cliché, "a detour."

Nodding, Penny wiped her nose one last time, maddeningly encouraged by what Sheldon considered to be poorly worded sentiments, but she was encouraged nonetheless. Settling into his seat, Sheldon buckled himself, waited for Penny to do the same, and turned up the radio, hoping to discourage any further chatter on the topic when it had the potential to end on such a high note.

As they turned onto the street, Penny sniffled one last time and smiled through her running makeup at nothing in particular before gently teasing, "Thanks for being my fake boyfriend back there, Sheldon."

"I prefer to be thought of as your wing-man, but that's beside the point." He cleared his throat. "Anytime, Penny."

**************

Leonard sat up with a gasp at the sound of a soft female sob in the other room and threw on his robe, barely tying the robe before he burst into the hallway and slid on his socks into the living room where he could just barely make out the shape of Penny's hunched figure huddled around the glowing face of her cell phone. It vibrated against the coffee table endlessly and she tried to silently collect herself, discouraged at finding herself in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment again.

When she glanced up, no one was watching her, and yet the feeling of eyes staring at her seemed absolute. She couldn't get away from it. Burying her face in the pillow in Sheldon's spot, she released a scream and heard a soft creak, looking up with guilt pouring from her every feature, as Sheldon sleepily rubbed his eyes and padded, barefoot, to the steps at the end of the hall. He yawned and she saw a flash of Leonard disappear into his bedroom.

She made up her mind to thank him in the morning.

Sheldon wore no robe tonight, though he seemed a little confused as he stepped down and sat on the arm of the couch. Taking up her blinking cell phone, he looked at the missed calls and voicemail notifications piling up and his stomach twisted into a hard, tight knot that roiled impossibly inside him. He believed whole-heartedly in the expression "butterflies in my stomach" rather suddenly, though this feeling was definitively not a pleasant one.

"Did you speak to any of them?"

She nodded miserably. "For about two minutes, and then I just...couldn't. And they won't stop calling and I can't turn my phone off...Sheldon, I'm sorry."

The phone vibrated in his hands and he flipped it open again, punching the 'Talk' button with the same authority he had whenever he spoke to lesser minds. Holding it against ear, fighting another yawn, he gently answered in what Penny considered his most blatantly masculine voice.

"Hello?"

She stared, wondering which of her three friends was trying to reach her now, and what her reaction was to the phone being answered by a decidedly unimpressed-sounding man with fatigue in his very breath.

"I'll inform you of the time simply because it's unacceptable you should be calling Penny at this hour. It is currently," he consulted his watch, "3:31 in the morning. At the _very_ least you ought to save your apologies until morning."

Penny listened with all her might, but she could not make out a single word uttered by the woman on the other end of the line.

Nodding, Sheldon folded his arms as best he could without dropping Penny's phone and got that icy edge to his voice. "No, I will not inform her of your deepest sympathies and regret. You may do so yourself at a later time."

The look of confusion that spread on his face next made Penny wince and she reached, groping for the phone only to have Sheldon stand and start pacing by the television.

"Sheldon Cooper—I'm her neighbor." He frowned as he turned to face Penny. "She is one of my close friends as well, Miss Bryce. She does not work in the morning—call her after 11 AM. There's nothing you can say now she won't accept in the morning—your sentiments are already well over three weeks too late."

Wincing yet again, Penny imagined Denise reacting to Sheldon's cool dismissal. She stood to deal with it on her own and Sheldon spun away, indicating she would have to wrestle the phone away if she wanted to take control back from him. She sat back down, too tired to try.

"She's been asked to leave her phone on in case the detectives investigating her case have to contact her, so it would be wonderful if you and your harpies would let her sleep through what's left of the night." Turning, he glanced at Penny, fully alert. "Do us all a favor and let the other two know. Goodnight." He flipped the phone shut and held it out to Penny as he walked back over to the couch.

Taking it from him, she meekly looked at her bare feet. She waited long enough for Sheldon to consider the crisis averted, but he didn't move to slip back into his bedroom, didn't even tell her to vacate his spot. She slid over anyway, and Sheldon fell into the cushion heavily, reaching to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"They called to apologize?" He sounded puzzled, like it just didn't make sense they would call at all. Really, Penny was flabbergasted, too. It seemed too little too late, though she didn't really blame them. Their absence was only a catalyst.

"Detective Hutchinson got around to calling them for their statements, to see if they'd seen the guy before they left me at the bar and she told them what happened. So they called to tell me they...didn't mean to ditch me, that it had just happened. They just," she laughed bitterly, "forgot I was waiting at the bar. Some guys offered to take them to a real Hollywood party and they didn't have time to come back to get me, the limo was practically _gone._"

Grunting softly, Sheldon looked around the dark interior of the apartment blandly before standing and swaying where he stood. "I can get the spare blankets and pillow from my closet."

"I'm..." Penny stared at her phone, the one that hadn't been vibrating since Sheldon hung up. "I'm okay now, actually. I'll call them back in the morning, like you said. After I get back from my class."

Sheldon looked at her a moment, and then adjusted his feet carefully, thinking over any helpful tips Dr. Picard may have given him for this sort of situation. Finding none, he decided to "play it by ear."

He squirmed, wishing he'd put on his robe, and tugged at the collar of his pajama shirt. "I'll come sit with you for a while."

She looked at him curiously, wondering where he was discovering all these small favors. Borrowing his phrasing, she frowned gently. "To what end?"

"I'll stay until you fall asleep. When you sleep here, you don't have as many nightmares. This," he indicated her stilled phone, "has mostly likely reopened painful memories. It would be best for restful sleep if you weren't plagued with night terrors, I would think."

Enough was enough. Penny stood, gritting her teeth against the crawling sensation blossoming all over her skin, and marched over to Sheldon. He flinched only slightly, reaching up to cover his throat, and Penny surprised him, throwing her arms around him, ignoring the fact she'd given him no time to open himself up to an embrace. She hugged tightly, squeezing the air out of both of them, and Sheldon tilted his head to one side, trying to see her expression, wondering if Dr. Picard had a similar policy about phone calls during certain hours of her weekend.

"I owe you. Big time."

The thought made him intensely uncomfortable, so he forced himself to go sort of limp and Penny finally eased away from him, beaming proudly.

"Let's go," he urged her and she nodded, finding his hand in the dark. He squeezed and her breath hitched, her proud smile only flickering for a split second.

**********

June ended.

July soared, but ended, too.

Now August, Penny discovered a penchant for painting; it was no coincidence it was also the time she found out she would be testifying against her attacker in court, with the son of a bitch present. They were trying desperately to reach a plea bargain, but he seemed adamant on facing his alleged victims in court. Two of the girls Penny had gotten to know simply by their common link—that _bastard—_had already bowed out. "We envy you," they said. She heard, "You're crazy—that part of my life is over and if it comes back to try to drag me down, I'll fight it all the way to the grave."

She didn't want to be like that. She agreed to testify before she thought it through.

"I've rebuilt everything—I can't raze it to the ground again, not for him, not for me. I'm just sick of it," one of the girls had whispered to Penny when they met for coffee. Penny understood, was happy the trial was so close to her own attack. Thank God for dental records. Thank God she found things to fling herself into.

Sheldon saw her doodling designs in oil paints on old jeans, purses, and plain fabric. Howard gleefully helped her build a cloth seamstress doll and she started pinning up fabrics. She designed her own dress for a birthday party and showed it off in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, absurdly proud of the flirty little thing she'd made, and then didn't even go to her friend's for champagne and hors d'oeuvres.

While she was across the hall changing into jeans and a top—the fun was over—Sheldon installed a program on her computer and adjusted the parameters. Patting the middle cushion in the couch, he waited for her to join him and then explained all the finer points of the software that took mathematical figures and translated them into arcs, swirls, repeating tesseracts, anything she could imagine. She played with numbers, listened to Sheldon's discussion of four-dimensional space, and saved files of patterns to print as guidelines for her handmade creations. With the right connections, she could have her own fabrics printed. With a little more practice, she could make some really elegant evening attire. Sheldon suggested a negative slope and Penny's eyes fell to his cushion.

Suddenly, she didn't want the cushion to be a point of consistency, his 0, 0, 0, 0 spot of safety in an ever-changing world. Worse, she understood what those four empty circles meant. Worst, she envied those numbers.

So, she kissed him on the cheek. It was a ghost of a peck, and she tried not to look like she was worried he would flip out at her the second she had her computer back in her lap, but Sheldon simply stood up, almost tripping over his own feet, and walked calmly to his bedroom where he meticulously recorded the interaction in both his social log and Penny's notebook.

When he returned, Penny looked up at him, worry etched on her face, and he smiled disarmingly.

"Where are you taking the train this time?" Howard asked in a flat, sarcastic tone as he peered at Sheldon over his shoulder. Their new fighting robot lay in pieces before him while he toyed with different screwdrivers and other tools.

Penny glared gently at Howard and rolled her eyes. "Let the man have a moment of happiness in his life _not_ related the physics, comic books, trains, or peach cobbler."

Sheldon blushed and frowned at her, reaching for the remote control from his standing position beside his spot. She shrugged, feeling like she wasn't meant to win this game, and Sheldon carefully lowered himself into his seat while Raj whispered frantically into Howard's ear. Penny knew it couldn't be good, though she rarely felt like Raj was whispering secrets.

Yet, Howard's head whipped back around and he dropped the saw blade he was holding. The robot they were attempting to build was forgotten as Howard scrambled to his feet. "You did _what_ to Sheldon's cheek?"

Not looking up from the pattern she was creating plugging random numbers into the program Sheldon had given her, Penny puckered her lips and made loud kissing noises. "Laid a big wet one on him because he's such a cutie. The _sweetest,_ most _caring, gentle,_ and _perfect_ friend a girl could have."

"Penny, stop," Sheldon pleaded, though it sounded much more like a command.

Still not looking up, Penny deadpanned, "I'm sorry, are they getting jealous?"

Sheldon smirked as he turned on the television, unable to stop himself. "Wolowitz, yes. Koothrapalli, however, appears to be _beaming._"

"Your real friends are happy for you when you get a little lip-action," Penny commented harmlessly, thinking nothing of it, and then thought carefully of the past two months. She supposed it could have been construed as a sort of 'big deal,' but she had been asked, by Dr. Picard and Sheldon both, to not think about her own recovery in such technical terms. Her job was to recover, it was another's duty to keep track of it.

Clearing his throat carefully, Sheldon changed the channel on the television and looked at his watch. "If you call Leonard now, he may be able to add an entree to our order so you won't be without dinner tonight. You were planning on eating at the party, correct?"

Penny's face fell a little. "Oh, that. Yeah, I guess I was planning on eating there. But don't worry about it. I'll just go over to my apartment when he gets back."

Falling to his knees next to the new robot, Howard picked up a ratchet and twirled it once. "You don't _have_ to leave, Penny. I mean, Leonard's bringing Emma over, right? You'll have a girl to bond with while we men work on the robot."

Peering over his shoulder from her spot on the couch, Penny smirked. "You need a bigger ratchet head, genius."

"To be clear, just because you can take apart simple combustion engines and reassemble them, does _not_ make you--"

"It puts her on par with _you _and your Masters Degree," Sheldon quipped, sounding bored despite his delight in pushing Howard's buttons. "Penny also understands how to clean and properly care for a rifle, so I suggest your next answer reflect that."

Howard gritted his teeth. "Sorry for my big fat mouth, Dr. and Mrs. Cooper."

"Apology accepted," they answered in unison, Penny fighting a smile, Sheldon looking over at her, stricken with a need for a rewind button on his life. Clawing for his cell phone, he gently edged down the hall toward his bedroom when Penny looked up and tilted her head, waiting for an explanation.

Sheldon started to answer her, to tell her he just wanted to double-check that he wasn't going totally insane and that what Penny was making was progress and not egregious errors in judgment. No sooner than he founds the words than Wolowitz leapt to his feet with an excited squeak.

"Bernadette got out of work early! She'll be here in twenty minutes!"

"Awesome!" Penny sounded genuinely excited to see her coworker, but started to stand and collect her things anyway.

Sheldon's finger veered and he dialed Leonard instead, hating how his body seemed to team up with his empathy against his brain even when his body didn't appear to be under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or the biological urge to mate. Still, Leonard answered the phone and seemed pleasantly surprised Sheldon was asking him to pick up an extra two orders of rice, egg rolls, and shrimp and rice for Bernadette and Penny, who were joining them.

"If we can get Raj a date, we'll all be set, huh?" Leonard joked.

"That would imply that Penny is my date tonight," Sheldon needlessly explained to Leonard. "Penny does not want a date for the evening, or she would be at that birthday party."

"No," Leonard rolled his eyes to himself as he parked his car. "Penny doesn't want to go to the party because she wants to spend time with _you._ And, I'm guessing, she's still a little nervous to be out and about by herself at night."

"I have to go," Sheldon responded coolly and hung up, scurrying to the door to catch Penny before she disappeared into her own apartment. "Wait, Penny!"

"Sweetie, I'm tired and--"

"I called Leonard. He's bringing you shrimp and rice." Then, through gritted teeth. "My treat."

She paused, back to him, and turned, face neutral. "Somebody been teasing you about me?"

He shook his head.

She started to walk slowly toward him. "Leslie? Kripke?"

He shook his head again, glowering. "Penny, I'm not a child anymore--"

She wagged a finger at him knowingly. "In the last three months, you have been more than a saint, Sheldon. This is the _first_ time you've balked at an offer. So, I have to believe either you don't really want me over there to have dinner with you guys tonight, or someone's been teasing you about me. I'd rather not believe I've finally stepped over the line—you promised you'd tell me if I got close, remember?"

Trapped, Sheldon collected his hands behind his back and heaved a sigh, looking anywhere but at Penny's flat face. "Leonard implied that tonight is a date. Because Bernadette will be joining us, and Leonard is bringing his girlfriend. He said if we found a girl for Raj, we'd be 'all set.'"

Through her faint blush, Penny reached and gripped Sheldon's shoulder firmly. "Sweetie, you can't be on a date with someone if you didn't decide to be."

"You went on a date with Leonard once, when you were unaware of his intentions," Sheldon pointed out weakly, fixing her with what she figured were his big, puppy eyes. "Lately, you've been on no dates. With anyone."

"I promise you it's not because I'm dating you and you're the only one who doesn't know." She squeezed his shoulder warmly. "I think it's a little better for me to start dating guys who start off as friends, you know? In high school, I dated Jeremy Pickens after he and I had been friends for years. It's still one of my best memories of high school. Things like this just...work out."

"Are you still friends with Jeremy Pickens?" Sheldon asked helplessly. The obvious hung blatantly in the air and they both smiled witlessly at each other, grinning and bearing the pain of ignorance.

She nodded and smiled to herself. "Yeah. He still lives two miles down the road from my farm. His parents died a few years ago and he got the house. I visit him whenever I go home. He calls every once in a while."

Tension left Sheldon's shoulders and he turned sideways, keeping the shoulder she gripped within her range, pointing feebly at the door. "Come back for dinner?"

*************

Sheldon put his head in his hands while Dr. Picard tapped the cap of her pen against her teeth. Neither had spoken, not even a greeting, yet; Picard seemed totally at ease, while the silence seemed to gnaw at Sheldon's will. She had the patience of Job and Sheldon, historically, did not. He could work tirelessly on equations because they followed set rules, procedures, and paradigms, even when they changed the known universe. Women, human relationships, and change had _no _rules.

"Penny kissed my cheek."

Picard let out a little gust of hot air from her puffed cheeks and beamed at him. "Excellent! She seems happier?"

Sheldon squirmed. "Almost. I mean, yes, happier, but not to an acceptable level yet."

"She and I have been talking about that, sure." Picard sipped her tea carefully. "What has she told you?"

"She wants to quit her job at the Cheesecake Factory and try something new."

"New."

"She hasn't had an audition in weeks. She's been spending a lot of time designing fabrics, making clothes." He adjusted his watch. "She's quite talented, even if she has stolen my sewing machine."

Digging into her desk drawer, Picard unearthed a yellowy Penny Blossom and clipped it into the side of her messy bun, brightening up her dark, chestnut hair. Smiling, Picard modeled the barrette briefly before lacing her fingers and lowering them to her desktop.

"How many more sessions does she have?"

"That's up to Penny. Right now, I've got her slotted through the end of September, every other week. She really is doing wonderfully, Dr. Cooper." Picard lowered her chin to her knuckles and stared. "You have been invaluable to her."

"I can't help but think," he blurted before he could stop himself, though he did pause to choose his words carefully, "that she finds me helpful because what I do is considered...kind compared to previous actions, not simply because it is inherently a nice thing."

"Meaning she'd gotten used to you as...how did she put it? WALL-E, I think."

Sheldon shook his head, mind fluttering. "She made me watch the film with her in July. Wall-E is a malfunction, a robot who feels loneliness, has self-awareness, _loves._"

"Ah, so you're EVE." Picard's eyes sparkled. "You have a directive and you follow it ruthlessly. She's along for the ride, keeping herself company. Yes, it's making sense now."

Sheldon's eye twitched just once, but he felt as though he'd been stripped naked and laid on a specimen table for Picard to dissect. Coming here was a mistake.

She sipped her tea once more, loudly, before putting the cup down on her blotter. "Funny thing about that, EVE fulfills her directive, saves the planet with WALL-E's help, and then falls completely in love with the sap, Disney-style." Another sip, another heavy drop of the cup. "My kids love that movie. I must have seen it a dozen times now."

"I think I should probably go. Leonard is supposed to pick me up to take me to the comic book store today, and then it's Halo Night, and Penny is bringing over her friend, the one that likes to design shoes, and I don't want her to let that friend of hers linger at my apartment unsupervised." He planted his hands on the armrests of his chair and started to push himself up.

"What's your prime directive?"

Sheldon collapsed into his seat and sighed, feeling very tired, and very watery. He reflexively tasted his lips, looking for a hint of that funny-tasting milk that had caused him to divulge Penny's secret to Leonard in the past. "To win the Nobel Prize for my work in physics."

"So, following the analogy, you'll be able to widen your horizons once you've secured that goal?"

"It could be a lifetime endeavor. I may die before I am awarded the prize." Sheldon put his chin in his hand and frowned gently at nothing. "This never bothered me before."

"Perhaps you'd like to sign up for your own session with me?" Picard asked gently, looking at her blotter to make sure he didn't feel pressured.

He shook his head. "No, I have an older sister and a mother. They'd both be delighted to give me advice, thanks."

"I'm not offering advice," Picard reminded him, wiping imaginary crumbs from the desk. "Something about Penny kissing you made you uncomfortable with what you were previously happy to accept. If Penny told you she no longer needed your friendship, how would you feel?"

His stomach sank and he felt his palms grow clammy. Shaking his head, he found he could imagine nothing further, but when he blinked, he imagined her looping her arm around another beautiful idiot and laughing her way into her apartment without a second glance. His throat closed and he couldn't answer.

"I thought so."

"Does forming a strong friendship require regular therapy?" Sheldon snapped, jerking from the unexpected dark place with a glare.

"It might, if one party is recovering from a sexual assault and the other has never been bothered to experiment with romantic relationships of any kind." Picard clucked her tongue thoughtfully. "Then again, you certainly don't push her and she's patient with you. Has she told you she loves you?"

Sheldon flinched and drew back as far as he could into his chair, snuffling out a laugh; the very idea was preposterous. "Of course not."

"Friends _do_ love each other, Dr. Cooper. It doesn't mean she's pursuing a sexual or romantic relationship with you."

He shook his head obstinately. "Still no. I have no reason to lie."

Picard smiled. "She's never said it _to_ you. That's all that means."

"Are you saying she _has_ said it? To you?" He sat up straight, arms rigid. "To whom?"

"Doctor-patient privilege, I'm afraid." Straightening a stack of papers primly, she shook her head gently. "She's not shy. I would venture a guess and say it'd be no trouble at all for you to simply ask her yourself."

"How does one ask a question like that?" Sheldon demanded, sounding dangerously close to going into hysterics. "And if she tells me she doesn't?"

"I wasn't aware you had a preference," Picard returned smoothly and pointed at the door, burying her nose in a book. "Your time's up, Dr. Cooper. If you want to make another appointment, just tell Carolyn on your way out."

He almost paused by Carolyn's desk on his way out, but stuck out his chin and stormed past, messenger back clenched tightly in his pale, clammy hands.

***********

Penny was floating happily on what she could only describe as Cloud 9. After having the courage to wear one of her homemade blouses in public, a local clothing boutique had asked if they might commission a few pieces from her. Using additional software, she found a way to draw preliminary designs without putting her atrocious skills to the test. She played with patterns, fitted her mannequin dummy, and officially stole Sheldon's sewing machine. She left her apartment to go to work, shop, and occasionally dart to the nearest restaurant for takeout.

Before she dropped off the twenty custom-made blouses, she let the boys take a gander and they'd made appropriately receptive noises of approval. Sheldon even gave his seal of approval to her double-stitched hems and helped her find the most appropriate price for her labor and materials. She made a hefty profit. She kissed him on the cheek yet again.

They ate a celebratory dinner at a Sheldon-approved restaurant (Penny claimed it wasn't the location, but the company she was interested in). Several friends joined she and Leonard and Sheldon; Raj and Howard, Bernadette and a handful of other waitresses Penny had befriended, and some Nebraska transplants. Sheldon noticed Penny gently hugging and tearing up briefly when an attractive redhead hugged her and whispered in her ear.

"Who was that?" he asked her when she sat across from him at the enormous banquet table celebrating her recent string of good fortune.

"Andika."

He looked over at the girl, who was on her way out the front door of the restaurant. He assumed Penny no longer spoke to the other two, that Andika was the only one who had made an effort to rebuild her friendship to Penny. An intense approval swept over Sheldon and he shot Penny a warm smile over the bread basket the waitress dropped in the middle of the table.

Winking, Penny turned her attention to her friend Ethan, who had stood up to deliver a toast. She protested, claiming she still hadn't "made it big" yet, but she silenced herself at a chorus of boos directed at her humbleness. Shrugging, she shouted enough was enough and everyone, Sheldon included, took a deep gulp from their champagne glasses.

He couldn't say no to her anymore. She had asked him yesterday to let her take his measurements so she could practice making men's clothing. He'd stood stock still on a small footstool for almost an hour while she meticulously measured everything from his collar size to his inseam. When he was excused from her presence, his knees wobbled most disconcertingly.

Tonight, he finished his champagne glass and wordlessly took another when the waitress delivered it to the table. Penny danced once with Leonard, but even Sheldon knew she was a little reluctant. She was "leaving room for Jesus" between them, as his mother put it. Leonard, to his credit, didn't press closer or seem put out. In fact, he seemed elated to have twirled with her on the floor at all. She had a drink that wasn't so ladylike this time, spent some time at the bar talking to her mother and promising her things were really looking up, and not just because she'd completely managed to distract herself. She felt _strong_ again. It really was liberating.

When she hung up her phone and dropped her purse into Leonard's lap for him to watch, all eyes followed her as she deliberately marched herself to the opposite side of the table. Several pairs of knowing eyes waited for her to select a dance partner, seeing that light of fiery confidence in her eyes again, bolstered by the good company, champagne, and victory. Not surprisingly, she dropped her hands onto Sheldon's shoulders and bent into his ear to murmur something.

Sheldon finished his second glass of champagne and looked at her, unimpressed with her argument, but still stood up on slightly less-than-steady feet and let her take his hand and lead him to the dance floor.

He was, predictably, atrocious. She took the lead after a few agonizing minutes and Sheldon did a good job of faking his way through the motions. Once she'd established the pattern, he took over, an indisputably quick learner. Couples were flooding off the floor in droves—Sheldon whispered, "I hope I'm not offending anyone—my intention was not to cause an exodus."

Penny shushed him gently and rested her head on his shoulder, releasing a soft sigh. Her arms slipped from their proper positions and Sheldon tightened a bit, his arms uselessly draped over her shoulders. Then, closing his eyes, too, he pulled her just a little closer and they stopped swaying.

"I am _literally_ only going to say this once, Sheldon, so listen very carefully." Penny wanted to believe she was drunker than she was, and it did mean something she hadn't been hitting the sauce as much since her attack (thanks to Sheldon's near dictator-like intervention in some cases), but she knew by the clarity of her vision and the way she felt his breath lightly tousle her hair that she was still sober enough to know better.

"My attention is rapt," Sheldon assured her, but she detected something like humor in his voice.

Leaning up into his ear, she smiled breathlessly, not wanting to believe she was really going to be so bold and innocent at the same time. Knowing him, he'd probably just blush and try to explain it to her, as he had when she had purchased him a Christmas gift for the first time.

"You are, without a doubt, my _best_ friend. Sometimes my hero. And yes, you idiot, that means I love you."

His face dropped into her neck, and from the heat of his cheeks, Penny knew he was both mortified and pleased with himself. Fingers twitching, he gripped her just a little tighter and she beamed at no one, fingers fisting in the fabric of his dress shirt. Vaguely she remembered that he'd been wearing a tie earlier but had taken it off at the first opportunity.

"I need air."

"Sweetie, I swear it's just the champagne—you didn't need to drink two glasses."

"Now, Penny."

He kept his face low, turned sort of away from her, and she took his hand, pulling him toward the exit. Smiling apologetically at the puzzled looks on her friends' faces, she tugged him out a side exit and into the alley where Sheldon flopped onto a moldy-looking pallet, holding his head in his hands like it weighed a million tons.

"You're not going to get sick are you? I'm a total sympathy-puker."

He shook his head, but looked up, and Penny felt her next comment die in her throat. Either he was _extremely_ upset, or he was about to start hyperventilating. She braced for either, eyes wider than a doe's, and reached to find his shoulder.

He reached up and rested his hand on hers for a moment before recoiling and dropping into his hands again. "Leonard was my best friend, Penny." Now came the mild hyperventilation she'd been expecting.

"I know. You can have more than one," she replied, relieved his conniption fit was over something as easily resolved as explaining a superlative, in this sense, was not absolute. She had practiced this speech, in fact. She was prepared to rant at him about how much people—the plural—could mean to a person, and how he had defied all her expectations and been the one she could really count on to pull through for her. It was there her speech always became more rambling than comforting—for her, he really was the 'superlative absolute.' She still pushed his buttons, and she still slammed doors in his face occasionally, but she always came mewling for forgiveness, if he didn't beat her to it.

"No, past tense, _was._ But it's not about folding sheets, or driving me to work, or comic books..."

Her face erupted into a wide grin, though she felt suddenly bashful. "He can still be your best friend, too, Sheldon. No one ever sets out to de-throne someone's buddy."

"It occurs to me how important this moment should be in regard to the notes I've been keeping, and your overall well-being, and I've been happy at positive experimental results before, but Penny..._Penny..._"

She sat delicately next to him on the pallet and he hunched away from her just a little bit, running a hand over his hair skittishly and Penny froze, realizing she was not the only one who needed to be approached like a fawn separated from its mother in the forest.

Swallowing, she folded her hands in her lap gingerly. "I don't mean to rain on my own parade here, but I'm not out of the woods yet, Sheldon. The trial starts up in a week and I still have to testify. He has a right to face his accuser, which means I'll be in the same room as the fucker, and...and..."

"I know. They expect me to testify as well, since I bandaged you up and had the first look at your wounds." He took a moment to look around the alley for a moment and Penny saw a haziness on his face, one that said he hadn't quite made the leap between filthy back-alley and disgusting cesspool of bacteria. "I thought I missed you."

"Excuse me?" Penny heard herself, but didn't quite register that formal tone. When they were gaming together online, she delighted in sending him inane text chat invitations despite the microphone and headset combination she'd already ponied up for. He would take his time answering her verbal questions while typing up beautifully verbose witticisms in response to her banal chitchat, to which she would invariably reply, _lol wut_

"I thought," Sheldon repeated, a hint of impatience already in his voice, "I missed you. As if you were gone. When I accepted the premise your absence would equate to a level of sadness I don't know, but it occurs to me that I'm not happy because I missed you, or that you're 'out of the woods.'"

_lol wut_

"My father used to force me to watch football. He taught me how to shoot a gun. He taught me how to arm wrestle, Penny." Sheldon laughed gently at himself, looking at his arms and legs like they had been incorrectly assembled. "I visited him two months before he died, and he taught me one last thing, and at the _time,_ it sounded too stupid to even bother trying to remember, but I wrote it down anyway."

_sheldor, in english before i go A.F.K. all over your A-S-S_

"He said, 'If _she_ ain't happy, _you_ ain't happy.'"

Penny smiled. Her own father had said this hundreds of times in her youth, rolling his eyes at her mother's outlandish demands. It was the reason Penny had been encouraged to act, why the women in her family were assertive, commanding, and spoiled absolutely rotten. When denied, they could become an unstoppable force. Penny had seen her father's misery in the nights following a big fight when he would slither past her door with a pillow and blanket to sleep on the couch.

Realizing he was the only one speaking, Sheldon's voice got very soft and he rubbed his hand over his mouth while he spoke, hoping it would muffle the sound. "You look so happy tonight, Penny."

Nodding, her eyes prickling, Penny wrung her hands, trying desperately not to smooth his collar and lean to kiss him on the cheek. "I am."

Sheldon successfully lost his train of thought and sighed in frustration, glancing over at Penny with a slightly clearer head. "I'm glad."

She laughed, but not in a way that said he'd done something too weird for her to accommodate, or had offended her in that special way she could never properly react to. He hadn't meant to be funny, but her laugh wasn't one that suggested amusement in that sense. She hugged his arm very gently, laced her fingers into his, and squeezed. Shooting her a curious smile, he found her laughter infectious somehow and joined her chuckling. It was just excess _happy_ escaping them, and the thought further amused him.

A new thought struck him as she tried valiantly to end her giggles, and his head snapped over to stare at her, to dissect the way she was letting her face describe her emotional state, to compare it to the mental image he had of her, the way she was in the photograph still in his wallet. She was right; she still had some ground to make up, but it didn't seem nearly as impossible now. His worrying seemed unfounded now, and he stopped smiling so goofily, watching her massage her cheeks with her free hand, complaining of an ache.

She leaned, resting her forehead on his, and reached up very carefully to brush her knuckles over his far cheek. "Do you want to go back in yet?"

"Are you certain you'll only ever say it once?"

"Don't try to bribe me, Sheldon." She sat back and took on the visage of a kindergarten teacher catching two children trying to tie together another's sneaker laces while he was otherwise preoccupied.

Looking at their intertwined fingers, Sheldon ran his tongue over his front teeth and wrinkled his nose just a little before answering. "What is the law of reciprocity in this case?"

"There's no protocol, actually. You couldn't make me take it back if you wanted to, and you can't make me feel say it again." She finally fixed his collar for him and he he leveled her with a disappointed stare.

"Yes," he dragged the word out, laboring the point. "But am I expected to express the same sentiments?"

"Only if you want to, and only if you have the sentiments to express."

He opened his mouth and Penny felt an absurd flash of fear. Lifting a finger, she pressed it against his lips and smiled flirtatiously, not sure where the spark of terror was coming from. "Come on, let's get you a glass of water and go home."

*************

"Penny..."

"I really can't handle any of your 'helpful suggestions' right now, Sweetie. I know you're trying to be helpful, but I'm one poorly worded piece of advice from stabbing you in the brain with a Q-tip."

Sheldon blocked her view to the mirror, holding an arm over his throat protectively, and wildly groped, managing to get her wrist in his grip before she improvised with her mascara stick. "Please! It's important!"

"That's it! Get out of my bathroom _now!"_

He spun her wrist expertly, hardly believing it himself, and she uselessly lolled against his chest, back pressed to his stomach. The fight went out of her rather unexpectedly and she huffed a few times, sounding watery and unconvincing as she started up a new threat, this one regarding more important anatomy.

Sheldon leaned in close, not succumbing to his desire to shriek his piece and sprint from her apartment to wait by the car. "Use waterproof."

Her head snapped to the side so fast she almost caught his cheek with her nose. "What?"

"Mascara—you have waterproof in your medicine cabinet beside your perfume." He didn't release her wrist though he could feel her pulse slowing as she relaxed. "If you were to become emotionally fragile for a moment, it would be much easier to regain sure footing if you knew you hadn't..."

"Morphed into a raccoon mid cross-examination? You're probably right."

He released her and she spun out of his reach, knocking over bottles of everything before finding a different tube of waterproof mascara waiting for her. A few quick swishes and she found her purse, her feet oddly anchored at the threshold of her apartment door.

"I can't."

"Penny, yes you _can,"_ Sheldon whispered urgently, his nerves jangling with the hurry they were in. "You've been practicing for months now. You and a friend are going to apply for a loan to open your own clothing and design store. For the past week, you've been going to the grocery store alone. Last night, you and I walked around the block four times without flashlights or reflective clothing and it was well past sundown. You _can_ do it." He bit back his desire to inform her of her incorrect usage—it wasn't a _can't,_ it was a _wouldn't._

She shook her head and leaned against the doorjamb heavily. "No, I really...Sheldon, I feel dizzy."

Bouncing a little as she swayed and started to sink, Sheldon gritted his teeth, tightened his hands, and swooped over, catching her just before her legs gave out. He was surprised how light she was until her full weight seemed to rest in his arms. Lifting her gently back onto her feet, he wondered if he shouldn't fetch her some smelling salts for the drive to the courthouse. He couldn't handle the risk of a car crash now.

"Give...give me your keys."

Her eyes flashed open and he saw a note of distress in them immediately. "Sheldon!"

"Well, this is an emergency!" he defended loudly, squeaking a little. "We're going to be late to the trial—if you're _too_ late, the judge will dismiss the case!"

"It's a criminal proceeding, Sheldon. The state can make their case without me there."

"Regardless, Penny, we're going to be late and you're in no position to be driving. Give me your keys." He held his hand out and Penny slapped them into his palm, wanting to cry already. "I don't want to carry you, but know that I will."

She pushed him away, promised that wasn't necessary, and promptly sunk to her knees in the hallway outside her locked apartment, hyperventilating, imagining the thousands of ways she could destroy herself on the stand. Gasping, she found herself fighting for fresh air, and Sheldon bent, lifted her chin with his index finger, and pressed his lips together until they had almost completely disappeared.

"You got away. You reported the crime. You went back to work. You completed a rigorous self-defense course, went to therapy, engaged yourself in a ludicrous business deal. Quantitatively _and_ qualitatively, you are a better person than you were three months ago—he has done _nothing_ to slow your progress as a human being."

Her chin wobbled and fell, but she seemed to be trying now, taking comfort in his analysis.

_"Just play it by ear. I can't stress enough how much your personal relationship with her is going to dictate your best course of action. There obviously isn't a flaw in your method, Dr. Cooper. May I ask again how you got my home phone number?"_

He closed his eyes carefully, brushed her bangs from her forehead, and pressed an impossibly gentle kiss against her warm skin, drawing away, hands dangling at his sides. He stood, his body positively tingling with nerves and the worst kind of excitement he'd ever experienced. Penny stood a moment later on surer footing and found his hand, hanging on tightly enough he eventually requested for her to loosen up just a little. She tried to oblige, but after the third polite request, it became apparent it just wasn't in the cards.

Sheldon stopped asking and simply let his fingers purple in her grip.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: There are like a hundred homework assignments I should be doing. I must have been on crack last semester when I scheduled, because I'm in a physics seminar. Not gonna lie, somehow TBBT has given me a slight edge. Today I argued with someone about Lois Lane getting cut into three equal pieces by Superman's arms of steel.

Life is good.

So, by next Wednesday there will probably (no promises) be one more chapter and then I really can't say if I'll have time. Apparently this snow-sculpting thingie I'm in is a no-holds-barred balls-to-the-wall kind of deal where we have three days to sculpt and sleeping and eating are entirely optional. Leaves little time for writing fic, sadly. BUT! I love my lovelies and will do my best.

And a special hello to anyone traveling over from Paradox to read. ILU GUYS LIEK SRSLY.

******************

He hated it so much, to be asked to wait in the room outside for his name to be called. At first, Penny, looking like a recent lobotomy patient, sat beside him and rubbed his arm, pretended she was comforting him. She hid her face in his neck for a long five minutes, breathing so softly he checked twice to see if she'd simply died. A pain totally unrelated to any symptom he'd ever heard of was crunching its way through his chest and abdomen with reckless abandon. Every time he thought of Penny wobbling her way to the stand, he squeezed her gently.

When they'd called her name, she planted a soft kiss on his cheek, wiped away the lipstick stain as best she could, and darted into the courtroom with a sudden look of calm resolve. Sheldon spent the next ten minutes in the bathroom scrubbing his cheek until the stain was gone, straightening his tie, fidgeting with the sleeves of his suit coat, refusing to admit Penny had been correct when she'd selected the color for him.

_"No, no plaid."_

_ "I don't see why it's any of your concern what I wear!"_

_ "Because, Sheldon, you're coming as my friend and knight in shining armor. A girl like me doesn't have a knight who wears a plaid suit coat to court!"_

_ "I beg to differ! You obviously do and I'm the case in point!"_

_ "You're right, okay? A girl like me obviously has plaid-wearing friends, but you're still not wearing the coat. Honestly, all the things you've been letting me get away with and now you decide to put your foot down?"_

He sat back down and tried to doodle equations he'd been working on with Raj in the air, but there was the occasional noise in the courtroom and he would tune his ears in, lose his place, and end up starting over. He stopped. The twenty minutes dragged on, then a mild ruckus, and then another ten minutes. A loud scream ripped through and Sheldon jumped up, eyes wide, and ran for the door only to have one of the officers posted outside hold him back.

"Some woman fainted, it's nothing like that. They're calling a recess—looks like they won't need you till tomorrow, buddy."

"Who fainted?" Sheldon asked, feeling sort of dizzy. "Is she all right? Was it Penny?"

"I don't know, but you need to sit down--"

A familiar blonde head burst from the doors, face a little streaky but mascara perfectly preserved. She started toward him at a brisk walk and broke into a jog, losing her shoes.

Pulling himself out of the grip of the officer, Sheldon stepped sideways and felt his arms open up; Penny fell into them with a sigh of relief and terror. Inexplicably, Sheldon clamped over her and peered around at the frantically departing audience of the trial suspiciously, hoarding Penny and protecting her in the only way he knew how at the moment.

"I want to go home, Sheldon. I want to go home right now!"

Even more inexplicably, Sheldon knew her plea had nothing to do with Pasadena. "You can't leave until the trial's over or they'll have to issue a subpoena and you'll be forcibly returned to California." He rubbed a hand over her back jerkily. "Patience is a virtue."

"I wait any longer and I should be made a saint," she growled and glanced backward at her discarded shoes, which a bailiff picked up curiously while a dazed woman was escorted on shaky feet to a waiting ambulance. Sheldon became very aware what chaos he'd entered into and felt uneasy.

The bailiff held the shoes out to Penny. "Court reconvenes tomorrow at 10:00. You're up first, Dr. Cooper."

Sheldon nodded and slid a hand down the length of Penny's arm, finding her fingers. She followed him, holding onto her pumps tightly, to the side exit and they wormed outside, making a hasty exit as entropy descended everywhere else.

*********

They had arrived home in time for Penny to realize it was too early in the day to put on her sweats and open up a fresh pint of ice cream. So she took a shower while Sheldon hung up his clothes for the next day and called Dr. Gablehauser to explain that his testimony had been postponed a day.

One perk of suddenly having a social life to speak of, a fact Sheldon would never admit to Penny, was that suddenly Kripke, Leslie, and even the guys were being a little less harsh on him. It appeared his reactions to Penn's crisis proved he wasn't as oblivious as they thought. Raj proposed he'd been simply biding his time while Leonard ventured a guess that he just didn't care enough to point out to them he was aware they were teasing him, or having fun at his expense. _Let them amuse themselves,_ Sheldon thought to himself when they got busy giggling at him. _I'll win the Nobel Prize and they'll have a good story to tell at a bachelor party._

It didn't hurt, of course, that when Leslie lit into him ruthlessly one day in late July, he'd stood up and gripped the back of his chair tightly, feeling like he wasn't only defending himself against her unfounded claim, but Penny as well.

"Just because I choose not to get upset over the idiotic things you and my so-called friends spend time saying to me doesn't mean I'm completely devoid of meaningful emotional phases. And at least Penny understands that!"

A day layer, when Leslie, still angry with him for some recent departmental dispute, caught Malibu Barbie visiting Dr. Dumbass' office, she couldn't keep the predatory grin off her face.

Penny had turned into a shark the moment she heard Leslie's first nasally, sarcastic syllable. By the time Winkle had finished her opening dialogue, Penny had turned and lifted her index finger into the air, her other hand falling on her hip. Sheldon watched with something close to adoration on his face as Penny, her wit lightning sharp—the claws had come out, both women swinging—ripping his arch-enemy to shreds viscerally.

He'd looked at her as if pained and enthralled all at once. _I love you—God do I love you, Penny._

Still, they separated back at the apartments after this first day of the trial. Penny wanted to be alone, which was good for her, and they both knew it, but Sheldon was almost at a loss what to do with himself after only a few minutes. She stayed away and painted her toenails, cried alone, gave herself the pep-talk she needed, and called home to tell her sister and mother how she'd done, what she was feeling. They asked how Sheldon was doing and she gave them the usual run-down, declined to come home forever and get a job at the general store for 'reasonable wages.'

They went to bed without another word to each other. Sheldon didn't speak to Leonard when he got home, didn't even answer the whining half-question that he heard: would it be a good idea if Leonard asked Penny out to dinner? Maybe she'd like reentering the dating world with a familiar, safe friend. No pressure because they'd been together once—no need to impress.

Sheldon didn't answer.

Sheldon refused to believe he'd heard his friend mutter such foolishness.

Sheldon closed his eyes and didn't feel right. Leonard tapped the wall and warned him in a soft tone about the impending thunderstorm, then put in his earplugs.

At the first crack of lightning, Penny sat up and threw her blankets off her legs, scraping her toes along the carpet looking for her slippers. For what felt like ages, now, she'd been lurking, waiting to return his endless favors. Now was her chance.

Some odd weeks ago, during one of those nights he showed up in sweatpants and sneakers, looking tired but determined, he insisted they go for a walk. He was sick of her sneaking out to the garage when she thought he and Leonard were asleep and standing with her arms huddled to her sides, imagining the dark pressing in on all sides. Every time she was able to force herself to inhale deeply and cast off the fear, but only a little at a time. She stayed near the door, kept it propped open with her foot, ready to dart away at the first sign of danger.

Sheldon had finally gone to see where she was spending her time when she crept out late at night and found her sitting with the new tenant from upstairs, a young woman who had recently shaved her head in solidarity for a friend with cancer. Penny tried to smoke a cigarette, managed not to embarrass herself coughing too hard, and enjoyed the irony of her bald neighbor who smoked while her friend slowly recovered from a bout of breast cancer.

The next night, the night after he'd spied and she'd tried to smoke, he showed up just as she was about to sneak out to go see who else was awake, to go brave the night. He handed her a flashlight and they walked around the block slowly, Penny's arm in his, their eyes moving together as they scanned every possible hole in the wall for danger.

Penny locked her apartment door behind her now and made her way across the hall, sneaking into their apartment and up the hall to Sheldon's room. Though she paused, she refused to knock, and opened it soundlessly, not surprised to see him sitting cross-legged facing the window, watching the lightning with his comforter around his shoulders. A loud crack of thunder and he flinched just a little.

She didn't bother being quiet as she slid onto the corner of his bed and he didn't look back as he calmly reminded her, "Penny, you can't be in my bedroom."

"In the past six years, Sheldon, I've seen at least a dozen people in here. Some were even _strangers._"

"When I first told you," he paused and hugged the comforter tighter around him as a particularly violent bout of thunder interrupted them, "I should have said _you_ can't be in my bedroom."

"I get a special rule?"

He couldn't resist anymore and looked at her, disappointment on his face. "Please, you know you have your own rule-book entirely."

"Yeah?"

"It's over there," he gestured vaguely in response, and sighed, moving over just a little. "Were you unable to sleep?"

Delighted in her own small way, Penny made a great show of climbing over the remainder of his rumpled sheets and collapsing into a cross-legged ball beside him, tugging at the side of his comforter to let herself into his personal teepee.

When he finally stopped resisting her, she curled against his side, hidden away entirely under the navy blue comforter, blonde hair all frazzled from the ionized air and the friction of the fabric.

"Penny, did you even hear me?"

"I was sleeping fine—the thunder woke me up and I remembered...you hate storms."

"I told you that to illustrate how everyone has fears—and that fears, like emotions, are irrational and baseless much of the time."

She shook her head and sat up a little taller, her chin resting on his shoulder. "Not baseless. You said there was a tornado when you were a kid, and it almost threw your house all the way to Oklahoma. There was a spider who bit your classmate in the lab you had to attend and it got infected and they almost had to amputate the limb. You got sick in the hospital once, sicker than you were when you went in originally. Isn't that where we get fears?"

"The likelihood of a tornado in Pasadena is very small. I should be spending time worrying about earthquakes." He sighed and felt her arms slip around his ribs, hugging him in a weird, simply comfortable way and he didn't notice the lightning strike or the thunder that followed almost immediately. He found he didn't mind that the storm was getting closer, so long as he was inside and a silent observer.

"The chances something bad will happen to me again are small, too. But they were small to begin with." Penny saw the wind change and the rain started hammering against the window so quickly it almost turned into a drone.

Sheldon swallowed loudly. "You came to check on me?"

"I guess."

"What did you think would happen if you left me to my own devices?"

"I dunno. I guess the same you thing you think will happen to me if you leave me alone when I'm scared."

He closed his eyes, feeling caught, embarrassed somehow, and turned his face, pressing his warm cheek against her forehead. Penny kissed just below his jaw, somewhere on his neck and suddenly the comforter wasn't stretched between the two of them and Penny was sliding her legs onto either side of his hips and he unfolded his legs, letting them dangle uselessly over the side of the bed. The comforter fell over them like a shroud and they were both blind.

The enormity of the unknown loomed over Sheldon and he felt very small, but Penny kissed him again, just in the corner of his mouth, and when he didn't shove her away or say in that very small voice that he needed air, or to walk a quick lap around the apartment, or that his hand was getting clammy or _something_ like that, she kissed him again, this time tilting her head and making sure her nose didn't smash into him. In the flash of lightning that followed, she saw he was staring at where he thought here face was, mouth slightly parted and cheeks rosy.

The thunder was a few seconds later this time, but synched perfectly with Penny's next kiss. The limited knowledge he had about dating, women, relationships, and sex was gone from his head and Penny seemed to defy everything he assumed about the lesser mind. Her patience astounded him, her touch electrified him, her skin...

She pushed the comforter away some minutes later, feeling like any longer and they were going to be simulating a tropical landscape. They panted for a moment before Sheldon leaned up greedily and Penny consciously slowed things a little. He apologized, breathless, and seemed angry with himself for a moment, but Penny pressed him down into the pillows and curled on her side in front of him. They watched the end of the storm and Sheldon tried to complain that he couldn't sleep on his side, not when she was in his room, not when so many things weren't up to his standards, but she kissed his palm and he started to doze, the words dying on his lips.

He couldn't help thinking it was supposed to be like this somehow, that he'd been holding out for the right person to share his most private, vulnerable moments. Like the nine months he spent with with his mother and twin sister, feeling their every movement, their every heartbeat. Like right now, as he subconsciously searched for Penny's and she sifted her fingers over his sleeve to make sure he was still there.

**************

He made it to court on time, with the help of Leonard, who had to practically tie Sheldon's tie for him. Still, Sheldon wasn't catatonic, just deep in thought. The whole way to the courthouse, he mulled things over, rested his chin in his hand, elbow floating, wanting to settle but knowing he wasn't in his spot on the couch. Leonard had half a mind to slap his finicky roommate and wake him up, but when the car stopped and he had to get out, Sheldon jerked awake and a nervous energy invaded him.

"Penny gets out of work in an hour—she'll pick you up, just text her!" Leonard shouted after Sheldon's retreating frame. Sheldon waved at Leonard without looking and fussed with his suit coat as he entered the building and took his seat outside the assembled group waiting for admittance into the courthouse.

Detective Hutchinson approached, relief on her face. "There you are! Excellent, right on time, Dr. Cooper. Are you ready?"

Looking up at her mutely, he swallowed and managed to ask, "Ms. Parker is going to ask me questions about the night of Penny's attack only?"

"Yeah, just like we discussed with Penny." Hutchinson sat beside Sheldon on the bench and smoothed her jacket, noting how quiet the normally loquacious doctor was being. "Is everything all right? How's Penny today?"

"She went to work this morning—it's her last shift at the restaurant. She's hoping to open that clothing store downtown in a few months—until then it's sponsorships and fittings and sewing machines."

Hutchinson smiled warmly. "That's great. Maybe she'll become a big-name designer, huh?"

"That's the goal right now," Sheldon answered easily, as if it were his big dream, too. She'd already gushed about designing the tuxedo he'd wear for his Nobel-acceptance ceremony and he'd felt that same little grin on his face, the same one he'd given her accidentally when she'd first discovered 'Age of Conan' and found it so entertaining.

"And you? How are you?"

Sheldon looked at Hutchinson curiously. "I'm healthy. The storm kept me awake late last night, but I believe I slept enough. Yesterday was difficult; I'm anticipating more of the same for today."

Nodding sadly, Hutchinson sighed heavily and combed her fingers through her hair. "After today, the hard part will be over. All the evidence has been entered. It's your testimony, then the defendant wants to take the stand. Jury should be released for deliberation by the end of the week."

"You'll call?"

"Penny said she wouldn't be working this weekend. She wanted to be here."

It was Sheldon's turn to grunt. He tugged his shirt sleeves, felt his face growing hot, and then, skin prickling, stood and waited. The doors to the courtroom swung open and the bailiff gestured at him impatiently.

"Good luck, Dr. Cooper."

He didn't answer as he stepped forward and walked through the middle aisle, feeling like some sort of ridiculous bride. Still, as he approached the wooden crib they'd constructed for witnesses, he calmed. Facts. Nothing but numbers, facts, approximations, and data. What Penny had done yesterday—retell the entire night's events chronologically, including details she'd been too mortified to share with Sheldon or the police during her first statement—had been nothing short of a miracle. No wonder she'd almost fainted the morning of. No wonder she insisted on clutching his hand on the way home despite his warnings of danger and collision statistics. No wonder he stopped talking after a while and simply told her she was brave.

He announced his name for the record, spelled it, swore to tell the truth ("Of course—why would I lie?"), and took a seat, unbuttoning his suit coat and crossing one leg over the other before lowering both feet to the ground and lacing his fingers together, hunched forward on his seat.

The prosecuting attorney, Ms. Parker, stood and adjusted her glasses, smiling at him as she walked over to the jury and leaned against the edge of the box carefully. "Dr. Cooper, could you please tell us your relationship to the victim?"

At his blank look, she clarified, sounding nervous suddenly. "Penny?"

He squirmed gently. "I don't understand the question."

"How do you know Penny?"

He rubbed his hands together. "We met six years ago when she moved into the apartment across the hall from me and my friend, Leonard."

Parker sent a heated glare to Hutchinson as the detective sat down and shrugged in the back row of the wooden benches inside the main courtroom. No one had promised Sheldon would be a star witness; then again, they'd thought he'd at least be able to answer these preliminary questions without practice.

Clearing her throat, she tried to regain control of the testimony. "So you've known her for six years. You'd say you're friends, right?"

"I don't know," Sheldon answered earnestly, suddenly hating that he'd sworn to tell the truth. In all honesty, he had no idea what to call Penny anymore. Just when he'd grown accustomed to her usurping Leonard's position as his best friend, she crawled onto his lap, kissed him breathless, and slept in his arms, tracing an endless infinity loop on his palm until he wanted to will her to stay there forever.

"Your Honor--" the defense attorney stood to object and Parker whirled, holding out her hand to silence him.

"No, Your Honor, please—he's a key part of the investigation. Some sort of savant, I guess—I promise it'll be relevant."

"All right, _go,"_ the judge waved impatiently, looking at Sheldon like he'd grown pointy ears and shown up in his Enterprise costume.

Parker marched up to the witness stand and clamped her hands on the banister circling it. "Dr. Cooper," her tone was dangerous, "you have interacted with Penny on almost a daily basis for six years, correct?"

"Correct," he blinked at her owlishly, guilt curling tightly in his belly. Even the guilt felt sheepish.

She exhaled heavily and her chin fell a little. "She has a spare key to your apartment?"

"And we have a spare to hers; she frequently either locks herself out or loses her keys. And my roommate thought it'd be good for her to have ours, in case she were to need her spare while we weren't home to aid her."

"Where were you the night of May 17th?"

"At a symposium of physics at Cal-Tech," Sheldon answered firmly. "Until 11:35—my roommate insisted we stay after and 'mingle' with the other attendees."

"You arrived back at your apartment when?"

"Just before midnight," he gritted his teeth, fingers digging into his thigh. Unexpectedly he didn't have any desire to talk about the events of the evening. He simply wanted to go to work, compartmentalize all the nonsense, and settle in for Thursday-night pizza.

Parker relaxed against the edge of the table where her papers were scattered. "What did you discover there?"

Here Sheldon was supposed to tell the entirety of his tale involving Penny, at least through the arrival of the police. So he did, needlessly reporting all kinds of unnecessary facts.

"Our door was locked, the lights inside were off, but the shower was running—there was no steam coming out from under the door. The person inside was either taking a very cold shower, or had been using the facilities for somewhere between 40 to 44 minutes—that's when I've observed our hot water runs out."

He consciously thought of his pace, listening to the rhythmic typing of the stenographer to keep him in check.

"I fetched the first aid kit after convincing my roommate not to call the police and report an intruder—we had 17 bandages of varying sizes and were running low on cotton balls. After checking for any potentially fatal injuries, I cleaned and dressed the wounds, including what appeared to be a human bite mark on the inside of her right thigh."

Parker lifted a giant glossy photo print of the mark and displayed it to the jury before spinning it for Sheldon's personal viewing. "This mark?"

"Yes."

She took her time explaining about dental records and how well the defendant's dental imprints matched up to the mold the police had made of the mark on her thigh.

"After she'd gotten dressed," he realized after some time that he'd been asked another question and had already started a lengthy reply. "After she'd gotten dressed, I called the police and we waited in my apartment for them to arrive. She gave a statement at my apartment and, at the officers' urging, we relocated to the police station, where they photographed her and took both our official statements."

"Thank you, Dr. Cooper." Parker nodded once, her eyes sparkling with encouragement, and she turned over the questioning to the defense attorney, who leapt up the moment it was his turn, and seemed to ooze right out of his suit for all the oil slicked through his hair.

Sheldon coolly answered all the questioned designed to trip him up—he recited times perfectly, explained how he'd known how long Penny had been in the shower, identified the products he'd used to bandage her, and correctly detailed how many bruises, cuts, scratches, and other miscellaneous marks he'd found scattered across her body. Just when the attorney seemed at his wit's end, he went over his notes and spun, frowning gently.

"Is there any reason you said you 'didn't know' whether you and the alleged victim were friends?"

Sheldon looked carefully at Parker, who only gritted her teeth and focused on the papers atop her own table. The judge didn't intervene either, so Sheldon cleared his throat and looked up earnestly at the greasy man with the pock-marked face.

"Recently our relational paradigm has shifted—how significantly I cannot tell. Whether or not we are 'friends' is not clear to me. I only tried to answer honestly."

"Yesterday, she testified you were her," he flipped through a legal pad loudly, "her 'ex-boyfriend's roommate, my best friend.'"

"When I say 'recently,' I mean since yesterday's session recessed," Sheldon's voice cracked only slightly and he cleared his throat helplessly again. "On the evening of May 17th, Penny and I were close friends. We'd known each other for almost six years and spent a good many of those six years in each other's company."

Parker stood finally, offering sweet reprieve. "Your Honor, the witness has established his relationship to the victim—can we please move on?"

"Please, Mr. Astin? Unless you have more pertinent questions."

The defense attorney tried, but he didn't berate Sheldon about the gathering of the clothing without police present. They seemed to have no clue how to proceed with him; one quick question about his PhD was the best they had. When it was clear he wasn't a physician, they tried to ask how he'd known how to properly care for her wounds, why he hadn't called the police first, why not an ambulance.

"She appeared to be in a great deal of emotional distress and asked that I not allow Leonard to see her or help in any way. I assumed she needed some time before I called the police to come press her for details." He blinked over at the jury, seeing their curious faces. "The fact she came asking for _me_ as opposed to Leonard gave me reason to believe it was...important. In the event of a victim of sexual assault asks for assistance, it's recommended to offer certain services. I did my best."

"No further questions," the defense attorney whined loudly and slumped into his chair. As soon as he was able, Sheldon fled the scene and had Raj pick him up to take him to what was left of his work day, where he was able to make some headway in dissecting the errors in his attempt to solve a pesky equation dealing with quarks, and then he seemed to succumb to exhaustion.

Raj knew better than to say anything as Sheldon swallowed two aspirin tablets and chased them with a sip of water, grimacing and rubbing two fingers against his temples. He simply waited for even Sheldon to admit they'd made enough progress for a truncated work day and declared they could go home. In the car, he made the most innocuous small talk he could, knowing Sheldon would never offer up information, but not knowing how to ask.

Finally, as the apartment building came into view, Raj slowed and killed their argument on Superman and Kryptonian anatomy. "Are you okay? I didn't think you were coming to work today."

"If I were to discuss with you my current emotional state, I would need it in writing that you wouldn't disclose any information to anyone. Not Howard, not your parents, not an unknown split personality to whom I've never been introduced."

Raj relaxed a little and parked next to Penny's car, leaving the engine running to let Sheldon know they weren't done speaking yet. "Dude, trust me on this one, okay? It's a favor you can ask. I know Penny's told you this a hundred times—you don't have to have written forms to make sure someone fulfills a favor. Just ask me, as a friend, not to say anything and my lips are sealed."

"All right," Sheldon responded after a moment's thought. "Raj, please refrain from sharing this conversation with anyone."

"I promise," Raj smiled, feeling very pleased with himself. "So, what's been troubling you?"

"Last night, Penny came into my room. I told her about my fear of thunderstorms because she was feeling frustrated by her recurring nightmares and other miscellaneous difficulties resulting from her attack." Sheldon swallowed, ignoring Raj's ravenous stare, the one that said he wanted to know everything Sheldon was willing to divulge. "Now I'm uncertain where in the spectrum of relationships she rests."

Raj frowned gently at nothing, then turned the car off. The silence that followed was even a little much for Sheldon, who had assumed he'd prefer it if Raj had nothing in particular to offer. Instead, Sheldon sat anxiously, hands folded on his lap, feeling his pulse throbbing in his ears.

"There's more to it than that, right? I mean, she visited you to return the favor. You've _been there_ for her since May. You're her...Rock of Gibraltar, Sheldon."

"Yes, well, be that as it may," Sheldon paused to swallow and look down at his lap where his bag was draped over his lap, as tired looking as he felt. "I still feel that some sort of change took place."

Pursing his lips, Raj turned his shoulders to face Sheldon and forced a look of patience. "Exactly. You're not telling me something. I can't help if you don't tell me everything!"

"Fine! Fine. She...kissed me. Several times."

Raj inhaled sharply after a lengthy pause, almost dizzy, mouth popping open and shut noiselessly. Finally, sounding breathless, he asked, "Like, for real, dude? As in not just a friendly kiss?"

"I'm fairly certain it wasn't simply a friendly kiss—and, I can't stress this enough, there was more than _one._ And...and she stayed the night."

Raj waved his arms, too stunned to let the conversation continue, and swallowed loudly, silencing Sheldon with one last, severe swing of his arms. "Sheldon!"

Hugging his bag to his chest, Sheldon felt a most peculiar mix of emotions. He imagined if he heard the rumbling sounds of thunder again this winter, as he was almost guaranteed to hear, he wouldn't feel the same fear he'd always known. Rather, he'd feel that spark of adrenaline tempered with the indescribably warm feeling he held for Penny. She was now inextricably linked to his being; somehow, by infiltrating his fears, she had carved herself an even more permanent niche. And the kiss...or, he argued with himself, the _kisses..._

"Sheldon, this is _huge._ She just...kissed you? Like, a bunch?"

Sheldon had gotten much better at answering questions lately. Between the trial, Dr. Picard, and his most recent forced interactions with the grad students at the university, he was used to parroting information about. Still, his patience had not gotten any better, with the obvious exception in Penny's case. And, he had to remind himself, they both still had their moments. She still rolled her eyes at him, still teased him, and he would point out her faults delicately, suggest a small change. They would glare at one another—they cared too much.

"You can't decide to shut up _now._ You've never shut up in your life, Sheldon. Now's not the time to start!"

His head snapping to the side, Sheldon let the breath ooze out of him before inhaling just enough to spit up an acceptable response. "She climbed onto my lap like she was mounting a horse and kissed me."

Raj blustered a moment before speaking. "And?"

"And it's obvious friends do not exchange saliva and sleep in a bed meant for one occupant. It's obvious something changed and Penny wanted it to change."

"And?"

"I'm afraid you're questions are getting a little too opaque to answer, Raj," Sheldon deadpanned, squinting slightly. "And _what?_"

"And did you like it? Did you want it to happen, too?" Raj reached up, pressing his palms to his cheeks. "This is totally different, Sheldon. It's _huge._ You've been so wrapped up wondering when she'll be back to her old self, and doing what you can to help, you're missing the big picture. Penny and I are right back where we began, right?"

"That's not true—you can now speak to her without drinking alcohol and making a fool of yourself," Sheldon pointed out, trying to prevaricate.

Raj rolled his eyes. "I've known her for six years. And, for the record, when she teases me I still get a little uptight. Alcohol certainly helps."

"Still, you haven't been speaking to her lately."

"Because, believe it or not, she emails me. Sometimes she calls to see how I'm doing. We're...casual friends. When we see each other, we're happy. When we don't, we just wait for the next time." He pointed one finger at Sheldon, his other hand forgotten, still pressed to his cheek. "With you, though, she _makes _time. You two make plans together, have your little..._things._"

"Things?"

"Like...laundry night, and putt-putt golf, and those silly prank wars. And _football,_ of all things. You have to know if you make a condescending statement about the Cornhuskers she'll bring out her claws, right?" Raj ignored Sheldon's pinking cheeks and soft protests, continuing madly. "You knock on her door the same way every time, and she knocks on your door the same way, to tease you. She gets your food order right and she's learned when you're most likely to freak out about something—remember when the tap dancer moved in upstairs and she spent all weekend with you planning out how to soundproof the apartment?"

Sheldon's voice was small as he answered meekly, "Yes."

"She and Leonard never had those things—they had white wine, tequila, awkward moments. It's always been so _easy_ with you and Penny. And you know you'd miss her if she left, just like she knows she'd miss you. If you give a plant sun, rain, and soil, it's going to grow, even if it's perfectly happy as a seedling. That's nature."

Staring at Raj's dashboard, Sheldon nodded silently, and stared down at the lines on his palms.

_"I know you and Leonard think it's just 'hokum,' but I think it'd be fun to look at your palm. I have this book." She dropped an enormous astrology book onto the coffee table of her apartment and blew a layer of dust off it as she sat beside him daintily. "I bet it'll tell you all sorts of things you didn't know about yourself."_

_ "Like what?" He snorted and held out both hands, daring her to continue. "That I'm analytical, rigid? Sorry to say, Penny, but just because some of your pseudo-science matches up with the truth doesn't mean it's worth more than any other nonsense available to the general public."_

_ "Like," she reached and pressed her thumb into the soft, fleshy surface at the bottom of his thumb, "you're a closet romantic who loves his family more than he lets on. Like," her fingers ghosted softly over his palm and stopped at the base of his ring finger, "you wish you were more creative." Her eyes lingered on the side of his hand, where lines formed at the bottom of his little finger. "And that you're only going to have one significant relationship in your life."_

"So, your relationship with Penny has changed. Is it better, worse?"

"I don't know yet," Sheldon murmured. "She left this morning before I woke up—how she left without waking me I don't know. And she's been at work, I've been...busy. Tonight will be the indicator, I should think."

Raj looked up at the building with a sudden grin of excitement. "She's home right now, isn't she? Let's go."

"Let's? As in you want to see my relationship with her reach its messy and inevitable end?"

"Dude, you're assuming a lot. Let's just go say hi to her. I'm sure she wants to know how court went today. C'mon, trust me. It's another one of those 'friend' things."

Though he thought he dreaded the thought of seeing her, Sheldon was almost jogging up the stairs to the fourth floor. He slipped into his own apartment, ignoring Raj's mewl of irritation when he completely ignored Penny's door, but it was all in vain. She was sitting in the middle cushion of the couch gluing together a few new Penny Blossoms. She wore a skirt she'd made herself, complete with silk lining and beaded detail, all hand-sewn for a change.

Looking up, a warm smile melted over her face and Sheldon's breath caught. "Hey, you. Did you go to work right after your testimony or something?"

He looked down at his loosened tie and slightly wrinkled dress pants before looking up again, befuddled. "Yeah, I did."

Leonard appeared from the hall with a slight frown on his face, one that only seemed to get a little more severe upon seeing his roommate. "Hey. I'm going to go talk to Emma—maybe Penny or Raj will pick up your soup."

"Sure," Sheldon didn't bother to argue, electing instead to take his bag off his shoulder and tuck it into his desk chair softly. "Goodbye, Leonard."

He waved without looking back and the door closed loudly behind him. Penny looked over the top of her glue gun sheepishly. "He asked me out."

Raj sat in the armchair with a soft shake of his head. "He and Emma only broke up like...three days ago."

"I know," Penny murmured and reached for the glitter. "And I know it sounds weird, but I've been doing a lot of 'taking stock' with Dr. Picard lately, and she's been asking me to look at the growth I've made. It's interesting, because I can't help but look at all of you guys, too, and it's..."

Sheldon sank into his spot and took up the packet of rhinestones with a slight wrinkle of his nose. Chances were he'd stay up until the wee hours gluing more fake flowers to barrettes again, unless she was simply keeping busy.

"Well, in my case, I see my personal growth as pretty damn significant these days," Penny practically sang the sentence, waving her glue gun around erroneously. "I suffered a major setback, but I am, today, in a better position than I was three months ago. So, that means my growth has been big enough to make up for my 'life deficit.'"

"Okay, sure," Raj immediately took up the cellophane packaging and started dropping finished products into them, sealing them and dropping them into a decorative basket. Sheldon began humming a sea shanty and Penny smiled at him, toothy and totally relaxed.

"And you," she continued, her voice reflecting her easy smile, "have made some pretty big gains, too, Raj. I mean, you and I talk a lot more now, and you've had a couple of girlfriends, and you just seem...happier."

Raj beamed at her timidly. "Thanks, Penny."

"Of course, Honey." She had to look away just to avoid melting under the brilliance of his shy gratitude. "And Howard," she added, voice softer, "is going to propose to Bernadette. When he keeps his courage for more than ten minutes at a time. After he stopped acting like a kid in a candy store, it was...really good. And now he's not totally insufferable. I actually like the little creep sometimes."

Sheldon snorted. "Don't let him know that or he'll suffer a 'major setback.'"

"But you, Sheldon, you're _phenomenal._" She had completely ignored him, and it struck him how lately no one seemed to listen to him unless he was staring right at them, refusing to let them pretend he hadn't spoken. Then again, when he stopped for a moment to listen, he really did learn quite a bit.

"I trust you, and I rely on you, and I feel like you finally trust me, and Raj, and even Howard seems like he's playing the friendship game with you, and you haven't lost an iota of everything I know to be _you._" She sat up straighter, taking on a Sheldon-like face and matching tone. "I won't touch your food, and I won't visit you guys when I'm sick, and I'll mute and closed caption all my stupid soaps while you work, but you..." Her voice grew soft and slightly sappy as she cooed over at him helplessly. "You give a lot now. And not just compared to what you gave before."

Unexpectedly, her words were very poignant. Though he absolutely loathed long, drawn out goodbyes, overly emotional displays, and lugubrious speeches, he began to formulate one for Penny, just to describe how much her simple, honest statement had meant to him. But he didn't speak. He blushed a scarlet sort of color, feeling it on his cheeks as much as Raj and Penny saw it. He hated it, hated how his body was no longer on the same side as his brain. Hated that he wanted to kiss her right there on the couch, where she sat with her thigh against his, gluing together frivolous hair accessories.

"B-but Leonard," Penny tore her eyes from Sheldon's cheeks and hissed when hot glue burned the back of her finger, jerking her hand away quickly, the gun falling to the coffee table with a loud clang. "I don't know about Leonard. He seems...the same. It makes me really sad because he's angry all the time now. I mean, have you ever seen him so mad?"

"Angry?" Raj asked, looking very concerned as he rearranged himself in the armchair, trying to ignore Sheldon despite his inner desire to point out the man's embarrassment.

Penny nodded, her lower lip coming out a little bit more, wobbling. "Yeah. He's really...snide? Is that the word?" Sheldon nodded absently, playing with a broken thread on the knee of his pants, thinking about how he'd need to buy a new pair soon, before a hole developed in them. "Yeah, he's snide now. Not the sweet sarcastic. Mean to Sheldon, mean to me! And when I wouldn't go to dinner with him, he...I don't get him. He started dating Emma and I was happy for him, I really was."

"But _you_ never stayed with a guy for more than a few weeks," Raj pointed out softly. "Leonard is jealous, but clueless."

"He acted like he owned me sometimes," Penny mused, sounding far away and sort of wistful. "It was cute—he was so sweet and attentive, and then he'd rear this big ugly head and yell like I'd done something horribly wrong. I don't mind being wrong, but I don't like being accused of being wrong when I've done nothing at all. Not so outlandish, right?"

"For the first several weeks after you broke up, he kept track on the calendar by the fridge. He crossed off every day you didn't bring home a date for the night and celebrated a month straight without a nighttime visitor."

Penny turned her head to look at Sheldon, curious at his dead, flat tone and the way he seemed to be divulging these facts as if it both pained and disgusted him.

Then, in a small voice, he added, "I don't think we're friends at all anymore, Penny. I think Leonard has really started to hate me."

Penny's hands immediately fly to his arm and she gripped him tightly, looking like this was breaking her heart already. "Oh, Sweetie, I'm sure he doesn't hate you. He's just...working something out. We all deal with it differently, right?"

"Leonard listens to bad music and plays chess. Leonard threatens to buy cats and die alone." Sheldon swallowed. "He never used to slam doors or act like I didn't even deserve his time."

"It's not that. Look, maybe he'll talk to us when he's ready, okay? If not, I'll just get it out of him in other ways." Penny smiled, trying to look chipper, and Raj squirmed in his seat before offering to go place their soup order. Howard wasn't joining them and Leonard was off doing what he could to salvage his relationship with Emma, who'd only recently told him she "didn't know who he was anymore" and left 4A in tears.

Raj closed the door behind himself and had to resist the urge to paste his ear to the space just beside the knob to listen and see if he heard Penny slide over to Sheldon's lap. Gritting his teeth, he descended the steps and went to his car, cell phone propped between his shoulder and his ear.

_We're all growing up,_ he thought, and immediately frowned. It was strange to be so consciously aware of maturity, like he was in any position to look back even a year or two ago and see that he'd grown, but Penny was right. They'd all made steps in their various directions, coming apart enough to be independent, but not enough to lose sight of one another. He had the urge to turn around, open Sheldon's apartment door, and tell her he thought she was brave, and wonderful, and exactly the kind of woman he was proud to say he was friends with. But it could wait. With Penny, it seemed like an understood, unsaid fact. Just like her winks at him, always carefully hidden during 'Halo' tournaments, the ones that said he was a precious gentleman some woman would be very lucky to call her husband some day.

Penny was a basket full of kittens and Raj didn't care they sometimes clawed or bit at his fingers. He wanted to pet them until they purred and fell asleep in his hands, trusting and wary all at once, helplessly adorable and ruthlessly independent. Penny was a sort of hyper-intelligent house pet he pictured Sheldon purchasing in the future.

Only now she had this whole new _thing_ opened before her, like a clam bearing an oyster. And she was the only one the clam would let reach inside. Other than the odd helpful pointer, the boys had nothing to offer her. She had mastered talking around pins in her mouth, had aligned her finances, and was only a week away from writing a check for half the deposit on their storefront. There was talk of Drew Barrymore or Kirsten Dunst stopping in for a fitting.

Sheldon's only suggestion, mostly a joke, had been to add Bluetooth to the purse Penny had painstakingly constructed using cut up pieces of old vintage coats and belts. Penny no longer looked like the pretty girl next door. It was a little sad to see the shining innocence and near foolhardy enthusiasm gone from her face; still, it had been replaced with a wise, suitably excited person who showed just the slightest hints of age on her face. She was a woman, and not just any woman. She seemed less like "Penny" and more like "Penelope."

_"Raj, her full name isn't 'Penelope.' Her parents named her 'Penny.' Just Penny. It's not short for anything," Sheldon informed him huffily. "Her sister's name is 'Maggie,' not short for Margaret. Just Maggie. Her brother is Timmy. Not Timothy, just Timmy. Obviously, it's some sort of pattern."_

Penny shifted in her seat and looked at the blister forming on her burned finger, yelping when Sheldon seized her wrist and dragged her to the sink, scolding her for not taking care of it before it had gotten so out of hand. She protested, saying she'd done much worse to herself, and Sheldon haughtily replied, "Not on my watch you haven't."

"You're right," she conceded as he ran the cold tap over the blister, soothing it. "You keep me pretty safe, considering."

"Considering?"

"Yeah, considering you shoot me with paintballs every chance you get, routinely help yourself to my laundry when I'm not there to get it out of the dryer, and still try to explain the finer points of 'Star Trek' to me, no matter how many threats I lob your way." Her eyes sparkled at their proximity and Sheldon smiled into the sink, watching the angry swelling dwindle.

He turned, his face coy somehow, and shrugged. "Harmless, for the most part. History would indicate that if I were to have the ability to drive you away, I would have already."

He frowned when she turned the water off and stood on her tiptoes, pressing a soft kiss against his lips. She wobbled, losing balance, and he steadied her, arms around her waist, and let out a soft sound, feeling like he'd been waiting all day to do this.

Closing her eyes tight, Penny tore herself away and pressed her forehead into his neck, falling to her heels. She hugged him desperately and he worried a moment, staring into the empty apartment over her head, hoping she wasn't about to cry.

_Smile, please. It's only worth seeing you cry if I know you'll smile again._

"Say it," she whispered. "I want to hear it now."

He hadn't practiced the words, too afraid to say them aloud, too embarrassed to hear his fumbling tongue form the letters and syllables. Too worried Leonard would hear him and set him up for some fresh hell, finally pushed too far to put up with any of Sheldon's idiocy.

He was afraid he would mess it up somehow and hesitated, but Penny was holding her breath and he knew it was hard for her to hear, to accept. But he'd been there the whole time, seen her just an hour or so after she'd come undone, all the way to the present, and he'd not once pressed too hard or withdrawn too far. He'd seen her with Cheetos in her hair and all gussied up in her finest dress. And he was still here, holding her hips to keep her feet on the ground, her kiss still lingering on his lips.

"You...you're my best friend, Penny, and I love you."

"Do you remember when you tried to move to Montana?" she exploded with her pent-up energy, refusing to look up at him. "When you signed up for the opportunity to research those pretzel-shaped beams of light in Germany? What about the time you almost took a sabbatical to revisit the CERN supercollider?"

"Yes, I remember."

Her arms tightened around him. "I'm so glad you didn't go. It's not the same when you're not here."

"There were several reasons I stayed," he replied softly, hoping she understood that every time, she'd been part of it. How a woman so irritatingly different had managed to, in a short time, become simultaneously more frustrating and more dear than Wolowitz, Leonard, or Koothrappali astounded him, even now.

This time, he kissed her. He made sure it was a distinction even she recognized, and rejoiced at the way she seemed momentarily overcome by all of it. It occurred to him this wasn't the first time someone had wanted her to be happy. He was not breaking new ground. What _was_ new, however, was how none of it had anything to do with _sex._ His body sensed the importance of the building of a strong emotional bond—evolution was smarter than he'd ever give it credit for—and withheld its selfish desires very boldly.

Had Sheldon not felt a very faint stirring in the deepest pit of his stomach, he would have gone on thinking he was completely devoid of any meaningful, lasting attraction to the idea of sex. But _Penny..._her legs around his hips and her arms around his back and her chest pressed against his ribs...

He told her he loved her again, breathless, unable to stop himself. He didn't lie, he never minced words, and she relied on him to tell her the truth. She threw her head back and laughed a _real,_ honest-to-God laugh, just for the joy of being alive and for Sheldon. He liked being the cause of her ecstasy.

He hated when Leonard came home moments later, the night's events written on his face as he stormed to his bedroom and he hated worse how Penny flinched, wilting in his arms, when his bedroom door slammed.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: LOOK AT YOU GUYS MAKING ME WRITE ANOTHER CHAPTER BEFORE I HAVE TO LEAVE! That's awesome. I had my doubts I'd have enough to scribble down and post a new chapter, but here it is.

First, IvoryCrayon asked me how many chapters I thought there'd be. I have to be honest—I never plan these things out. Usually I arrive at the final chapter and just sort of know that's the end. And then I post it with a big note at the beginning showing my surprise that it's over. I guess I want to see this through to the bittersweet end, to make sure Leonard doesn't end up an angry, sad sap. And also because there's a lot more Shenny goodness to come.

There was no "Second," so without further prevarication: MOAR FIC.

*************

Sheldon regretted this arranged meeting with his sister with every ounce of his being, but there was little he could do when they were both visiting their mother's house on the same weekend. When their grandmother requested family meetings, they were practically mandatory. The fact he took the train and lived almost seven hours away by said mode of transportation meant nothing to her. He bought the ticket and went a little bug-eyed when Penny asked if she could tag along for the first leg, spend a night at his mother's, and head up to Omaha by plane.

And even though Penny had expressed a keen interest in speaking with Missy when they arrived, tired and more than a little giddy, she'd been quickly distracted by the photos lining every square inch of the mantle in his mother's house.

He'd left her with his brother, Buck. His brother who ranched cattle and horses and had a Texas drawl so thick Penny just grinned and grinned. His brother who made his stomach feel beastly and snarly when he saw the way the prowler inside woke up to stalk around Penny and eye her up and down.

"So, you brought a girl home." Missy decided to break the ice first, seeing no evidence Sheldon would do so on his own.

"You've known Penny for years. Don't pretend like I'm bringing some random stranger home." Sheldon twirled a spoon through his tea and looked distastefully around the coffee shop she'd chosen. "Is this a regular haunt of yours?"

She wagged a finger at him, looking too much like their mother. "No hedging. You brought her home."

"She's on her way to Nebraska to visit family and wanted to keep me company on the train. I protested—"

"But only because you like her," Missy interrupted, a terrible, knowing smile on her face. He was glad Penny wasn't there to point at her expression triumphantly and insist on reading his palm again. She would say it was a telepathic link twins shared. She would tell him he would feel it in his heart if Missy were in danger, if she were scared or happy. He would roll his eyes.

Sighing, Sheldon swirled his tea a little more energetically. "No."

"Oh, don't pretend, Shelly. You're so transparent!"

"While my skills at concealing secrets and lying have grown immensely, I still have no use for lying over trivial matters. I do not _like_ Penny." He removed the spoon and placed it on his napkin gingerly. "We have moved beyond such meaningless emotions."

Missy blinked at him, trying to read into his transparent face, but she wasn't sure she'd recognize anything if she saw it. Historically, her brother hadn't displayed any deep connections willingly. He never got the same look on his face when he talked about physics, or when he opened up a letter from Mee-Maw. Talking about Penny put something totally different in his eyes, made the corners of his mouth draw up subtly, hinting at a deeply rooted happiness.

"That's your way of sayin' you love her, isn't it?"

Sheldon sipped his lukewarm tea and put the mug down. "Penny's store opens tomorrow."

"Momma said you were different last time she visited—I had to see it myself."

"She's already behind on orders—I warned her not to celebrate too heartily last weekend, but she doesn't listen to me when it comes to these matters." He sighed sadly, sounding like a tired husband already. "Too much tequila and dancing—she dehydrated herself."

"You talk so much and say _nothing_ sometimes," Missy mused, smiling despite herself.

Looking into his mug, Sheldon shrugged helplessly and felt his feet scraping at the sticky linoleum under their table. "You wanted to catch up. I'm simply filling you in on the happenings of my life since we last spoke on the phone."

Missy nodded, putting her chin on her hand, already frustrated and amused by him. "Did you know twins' hearts start beating at the exact same time?"

"Did you know ours were perfectly in sync? Mom and Dad didn't know there were two of us until the ultrasound. Our heartbeats were lined up in such a way they sounded like a single organ. It's rare, but Dr. Hoover told me about it at our sixteenth birthday party."

"You know, Shelly, I think I might actually _like_ you. You're my brother, so I gotta love you, but I really like you these days. You're still frustrating and you're still _you,_ but you've gotten a little softer."

He nodded, mirroring his sister, chin on his closed fist, elbow planted on the table. "I'm glad."

"And you love Penny?"

He nodded again, too certain to bother prevaricating any longer. Missy grinned at him selfishly, thinking of what that meant for _her,_ for the oft-forgotten sister of the super-genius in the family. He was always the one everyone watched, whispered about, and asked about. He brought home a _girl. _He loved the girl. He admitted as much. She imagined he would marry the girl.

"Why?" she asked, unable to help herself.

"If a man could answer that question appropriately, I believe you wouldn't purchase a _Cosmo_ every month and read it cover to cover," Sheldon replied smoothly. "Dad was right about women, though. When he said I couldn't be happy unless I made _her_ happy."

"Her being...Penny?"

"While I know it's categorically impossible for him to have known that, and while I know he was speaking in generalities," Sheldon put the spoon back in his tea and stirred uselessly. "I have recently started to believe somehow he _did_ know. Penny believes in psychics."

"Penny's a Sagittarius."

"Penny is _perfect._"

****************

Penny slept on a pullout couch in the living room of a kitchen that smelled like home-baked cookies and barbeque sauce. Snoring softly in the other room, she could hear Buck, his enormous sheepdog Gunther, and Gunther's protege, a beagle puppy named Slider.

"I used to play baseball as a kid," Buck had explained when he scratched Slider's big, white belly affectionately. "Gunther is my ex's dog—but I love the big goof, so I can't just throw him into some shelter, can I?"

Sheldon got up near 2:00 to microwave some milk to help him sleep. There were no pressing issues in the back of his mind, no worries. He was vaguely concerned about Leonard's recent world-weariness, the way he'd sunk to a sitting position in the living room four days ago and started to cry in earnest, but Penny had shown up and swooped in for the rescue.

She promised him it was just an early mid-life crisis. They laughed, both with tears on their faces, and joked about buying sports cars and marrying people half their ages. Sheldon had complained that none of them was in fact thirty years old yet, and Penny looked a little alarmed.

"Hey, Moon-Pie," Penny cooed from the pullout. "Trouble sleeping?"

"The time change and the new location have temporarily upset my usual sleep patterns. I should be fine. Would you like a glass?" He peered around the corner of the wood cabinets in the kitchen.

"No, but sit with me while you drink it."

He obliged immediately, sitting very cautiously on the edge of the springy mattress with a look of disdain. "This can't be good for your back."

"It's just one night. Unless you want to share your bed with me," she added the last part on reflex, wagging her eyebrows at his sharp look of reprimand. "I know, I know. Your mother would probably throw holy water on us first thing in the morning."

"How long will you be in Omaha?"

She shrugged. "Until Sunday, I think."

"You didn't want to be there when the store opened?"

"I'm the designer—not the clerk." Penny took a moment to luxuriate in those words. _I own the store, the clothes, the ideas. I don't just run the register this time. I don't scrounge for tip money and fight tooth and nail to peddle toothpaste and cereal to horny teenage boys._

"May I join you in Omaha?"

She was quiet a moment, and then slowly answered, "Yeah, that'd be nice. But..."

"I'm sorry if I've imposed on a family gathering," he interjected quickly, refusing to let the pause play out. "Goodnight."

"No, Sheldon," she sighed the words out, reaching up to cover her face, her frustration making her body tight, her legs pinching together painfully. "I want you to come. I do, okay? I just...want to know. Everything. The future, everything. Right now."

He glanced back at her, wanting to be confused, but lately he was finding that to be a Herculean task. Everything had fallen so neatly into place it almost made him suspect foul play. When he and Raj presented their paper on bent light waves and properly debunked the most recent Loop Theory 'triumph,' he would surely reach the hallowed halls of Nobel Laureates. To top it all off, when he sat in his spot back home, she would come over and sit beside him, kiss him gently on the cheek, and ask him how his day had gone, and then listen. And he would repay the favor, try to listen, but end up admiring her for one reason or another. Mostly, he admired so much of her it was hard to concentrate.

"Your biological clock is ticking," he remarked softly and looked at the empty glass in his hand. He'd forgotten to put the milk in the glass upon Penny's invitation.

"Do you ever wonder how you ended up with a beautiful mind? I mean, nature versus nurture—you're still an anomaly."

He shook his head and felt her hand breeze up over his arm and grasp at his elbow, not sure where else would be appropriate to grab. "A product of random genetic coding. What some call a miracle, what others call scientific probability."

"So, the odds?"

"Odds are Leonard will move out by Christmas and I'll need a new roommate. If that's the case, there's a 100% probability I'll ask for you to move in—because I know you, and because I already feel as if we live together, so the adjustment would be negligible. And if we lived together, it would not be so much to complicate things because you've been my neighbor for six years and I think we'd coexist satisfactorily." He closed his eyes briefly. "I have no interest in becoming romantically involved with anyone else in the foreseeable future."

"And beyond," she insisted, sounding almost petulant.

"And beyond," he indulged her. "So, provided you have no interest in pursuing outside romantic endeavors, I would say the odds are in our favor."

She smiled and felt the familiar prickling of tears against her eyes. "You fell in love with me."

"I just _am_ in love with you. There was no falling involved."

"You're a closet romantic," she whispered, her thumb finding his palm and tracing the offending line with deadly accuracy.

Sheldon grunted distastefully but didn't pull his hand away.

Penny snuggled against his side slowly, wishing he could stay all night. "Your clock is ticking too, huh?"

"I'll sing you 'Soft Kitty' if you go to sleep right after," he murmured and turned his chin to find her face in the clear moonlight drifting in through the sheer curtains hung up in the living room.

"I'm not sick," she sat up a little and caught him in a kiss that was no longer simply sweet. Something in the way her lips clamped down on his and nibbled a little made him shiver and he realized he'd dodged her last question because _yes,_ his clock was ticking. His engine was revving. He wanted to completely possess Penny and, in a wildly inappropriate, scientifically sound way, create beautiful, brilliant, spoiled brats of children with dusty brown hair and green-blue eyes.

She slipped away, knowing if she pressed against him any longer he would let her push him back into the pillows of the lumpy pullout and it would be game over. She knew enough to interpret his ragged breathing as the stirrings of arousal. She knew enough from heated kissing fits in his bedroom and snuggling on his lap in his spot to know he would no longer be able to ignore his biological imperative, no matter how impertinent he found it to be lusting after her when she was still celebrating the jail sentence her attacker had been awarded.

"We'll take the train to Omaha from here," she murmured, falling back in the pillows alone. Sheldon crawled up beside her and watched as she found his hands and curled her warm fingers around his palms, a smile tickling her nose, making it scrunch up just a little. "Whack-a-doodle."

"I love you," he told her breathlessly, as he always did when the thought struck him. It struck often, but he didn't lie, and it never occurred to him to keep his opinions quiet.

"Thanks, Sweetie," Penny replied softly, kissing him once more, wanting to say it in turn to him, but he never seemed bothered by her reservations. He was sure of how _he_ felt, which was strange enough, but her one-time confession was still floating his boat spectacularly. The flash of hope never entered his gaze when she had the perfect moment to tell him again, but she couldn't shake away the fluttering terror that sometimes crept up and settled deep in her chest.

It was mad enough she'd crawled into his bed that night and kissed him, but it was truly insanity that every kiss had patched up something and made her feel whole. She caught herself when she and Sheldon were out and about surveying the room, wondering what other couples thought of them, even when they were simply friends. _Unlikely_ came to mind.

Sheldon sighed in his sleep, a contented noise that reminded her of a cat. She sighed, too, but in a more resigned way, a frustrated way that said she had no choice. Smiling sadly at his closed eyes and his rhythmic breathing, she touched his cheek with her thumb. "Love you back, Sheldon."

**************

Penny still had a lipstick imprint on her cheek, left by Sheldon's grandmother. She still clutched the tin of cookies the woman had made for them, to ward off hunger during their trip. First thing in the morning, after Sheldon had slunk back to his room and Mary Cooper had mysteriously appeared, dressed and fresh as a daisy, Penny had dragged herself from bed and wandered to the car where Mrs. Cooper was loading fresh-cut flowers and a shot glass. Tucked under the passenger's seat, Penny discovered a mostly empty bottle of Jim Beam.

They each took a shot at his father's grave, and Mary laid fresh cut flowers by the headstone, making soft comments now and then, laced with unresolved frustrations, but mostly love. She talked about how worried she was about her kids, all three of them, and wondered aloud if any of them would settle down. Penny stared at the simple, vapid gravestone and wondered what kind of man lay beneath the soil.

"Sheldon ever talk about his daddy?"

Penny didn't see the point in lying. "Almost never."

His mother sighed and bent, brushing dead flowers from the stone marker. "They were from two different worlds and they did nothing to fascinate each other. They were both stubborn—sometimes it was all that would make either of them believe they were related to the other."

Penny smiled gently and looked at Mrs. Cooper carefully. "You do this every week?"

"Whenever the mood strikes me. Which is usually Friday mornings first thing in the morning."

They were quiet a moment, and then Mrs. Cooper looked at her watch and bent her head in prayer, finding Penny's hand and squeezing it, not letting her escape. She wanted dearly to back away, to let the woman have her moment with her deceased husband free of her presence. She'd never met the man, never even seen a photograph of him.

"George," his wife started in a stern voice, like she was talking Sheldon out of some new misdeed. "Don't be too set in your ways—we both know that's no way to spend your afterlife. It's too late for you to say you want no part in this anymore—you hung on too damn long for the kids to forget you, so give them hints. Send an angel or _something._ Buck's divorced, Missy's sworn off men for the hundredth time, and Sheldon..." She heaved a sigh, eyes still shut. Her hand tightened over Penny's fingers. "Needs you."

_"Sit down, shut up, and listen, Poindexter," Sheldon recited faithfully. "And then he told me it was unseemly to have 'carnal relations' with a woman who wasn't my wife, but then he winked at me. My mother yelled at him and he winked again. It was all very confusing."_

Penny, who couldn't bring herself to shut her eyes and try to pray, watched a teenaged boy drop a single rose on a plot several yards over, leaving without a word. She imagined her scars hurting, tried to ignore the fact there was still a little leftover mark from the bite on her thigh. She wanted to go back to the house and hug Sheldon.

"You know he loves you, as much as you terrified him. He just doesn't like things he doesn't understand, and to be fair, George, you never helped him. You just _willed_ him to be the son you wanted. You had Buck, though. Do you appreciate Shelly for what he is now?"

A lone tear raced down Penny's cheek and she reached up with her free hand to brush it away. Lately even Hallmark card commercials were sending her into sobbing fits.

"Penny?"

Looking up over wet eyelashes, Penny gave a tight smile to Mrs. Cooper, who squeezed her hand, passing some sort of unfair torch. Letting out one shaky breath, Penny simply said, with all the stubbornness and testosterone she could muster, "I love your boy, Mr. Cooper. And I'm good enough for him, and I deserve him. So, I guess I'm just warning you so you'll get used to the idea, because I don't think there's much anyone can do about it."

It was September, and still warm, but a cold chill raced down her back; she imagined icy, ghostly fingertips traveling down her spine, resting in the middle of her back. It wasn't meant to scare her. So she released Mary Cooper's hand and started back for the car, the bottle of Jim Beam sticking out of her purse like a starlet's puppy peeping from a Gucci handbag.

She wished she had a shot of something now, on the train. Sheldon, no matter how precious he was, could still suck the relaxation out of a room. He even enjoyed being on trains, and had kept her mildly entertained with various useless factoids for well over an hour, but now, in the silence that pressed in on her, she wanted to snap and bite.

"You're angry."

"Not angry...frustrated. And don't ask why because I'm not sure."

"I won't ask. I'm certain it has something to do with Leonard."

Penny tore her eyes from the flat landscape and let her eyes fall half-shut as she looked at him. "Yeah?"

"He can't realistically hate us, can he? Not if he told everyone he'd given up on future attempts to woo you. Of course, I've been reading up on the matter, and I'm not sure how legitimate it is for one party's best friend to enter into a relationship with his or her best friend." Sheldon looked out the window nervously, then back in.

Quietly, Penny looked at the tin of cookies she still gripped. "Honestly, I'm mad that we're spending any time talking about what he wants. It's obvious he doesn't care at all what me or _you_ want."

Sheldon stared at her curiously and then asked, sounding shy, "Penny, what _do_ you and I want?"

"Right now, I want to be able to do _whatever_ I want without him acting like it's some underhanded plot to piss him off," she huffed. "I don't want to have to worry about ruffling up his feathers—he told me when we broke up he was okay with it, that he was over it, too."

"Is it impossible to imagine he was lying?"

"Not judging from the way he's been acting lately," she folded her arms, the tin sliding down her lap a little. Sheldon reached under the table separating them lightning quick and kept it from tumbling to the ground, his thumb on her knee.

He sighed at her stubbornly frowning face. "I'll talk to him when we arrive back in Pasadena. It's possible it's only tangentially related to us. He _was_ having problems with Emma before, if I remember correctly."

"What do you mean 'if?'" Penny teased. "I thought your mind didn't forget."

"If I never bothered to ascertain his happiness with his relationship in the first place, there's nothing to remember. Ergo, I don't know that I remember correctly." He indicated the window. "The view is better from this side of the table."

She joined him on the other side of the table, noticing the only other occupant of their car was a man sleeping against the window, his coat balled up as a makeshift pillow. Ignoring the fact the seats were plenty roomy enough for two full-sized adults to have their space, Penny slid against Sheldon's side and put her chin on his shoulder, watching the rolling flatlands of Oklahoma sail by the window. It _was_ better watching the landscape approaching rather than fading away. It gave her a sense of optimism.

He inhaled, sounded as if he were about to speak, and then silenced himself, lifting his arm slowly and lowering it uncertainly around her shoulders. She purred in contentment, turning her head briefly to kiss his neck and she felt the goosebumps erupt over him. Even her personal man of steel was warm-blooded and real.

"My parents still have my old horse, from when I used to ride in high school," she told him brightly, her hand finding his and squeezing it gently. "Her name is Minnie."

"I haven't ridden a horse since Buck took me during my break from the university in Germany," Sheldon replied easily, as if he talked about his family all the time.

"She's a white horse. All white with some gray freckling on her back, but the saddle covers it up." Penny yawned surreptitiously. "As my knight, I feel like you're going to have to saddle up when we get to the farm. I'll ride my sister's horse."

"Penny, I don't ride anymore. I only did once, and only because my mother lied and said Buck had planned the whole day for us, to welcome me back from Europe because he _missed_ me."

"I'm sure he missed you," she protested.

"Regardless, I don't ride horses."

"I'll ask you again when we get there." She kissed his neck again, smiling evilly to herself at the way he shivered just barely. "I might convince you by then."

"The stories of the knights in King Arthur's court are highly romanticized. They might as well be written by contemporary romance authors for all their emotional worth."

She snorted. "And you're well-versed in world literature now, huh? It's not shallow, Sheldon. It's chivalry."

"I was raised with Southern hospitality, Penny, and what Lancelot and Guenevere did is not, under any definition, polite."

"But it sure as hell is romantic. They tried, because they loved Arthur so much, not to destroy his reputation or his trust."

He lowered his cheek to her head and rested a moment, knowing the angle was awkward but not caring. "I'm not Lancelot."

"No, you're Galahad." She giggled. "The chaste knight obsessed with finding the Holy Grail."

Sheldon mulled over the idea for a few minutes, and then offered her the barest of smiles, dipping his chin to press a cautious kiss on her forehead.

**************

Penny's father was in the middle of cleaning his rifle when she knocked on the front door of the house with the sunken porch tucked between all the flat, open spaces and corn stalks. She waited all of half a second before throwing open the door and walking in, Sheldon trailing awkwardly behind her, head slung low, trying not to look anyone in the eye.

Elsie, Penny's mother, almost dropped the dish she was hand-drying and let out a shriek of delight before bounding over, her denim shirt spotted with water and Palmolive. She hugged Penny first and took a step back to look questioningly at the young man she'd brought with her, the man wearing a shirt littered with a swarm of tiny bats circling over a menacing city skyline.

"Mom, this is Sheldon," Penny introduced cautiously, and inhaled to continue, to explain why he was there, but Elsie's eyes had filled with tears the instant his name had fallen from Penny's lips. She stepped forward and jerked him down into a rough hug, her arms around his neck. She kissed him once on each cheek and held him at arm's length, eyes still glittering.

"You are just a _blessing,_ Sheldon. Penny's told us so much about you and I just can't thank you enough for what you've done for our little girl."

Penny shivered, turned her head, and saw her father propping his rifle up against the mantle in the living room, pulling up his work-worn jeans and smoothing hand over the hole in his back pocket where he always kept his wallet.

"Welcome home, Slugger."

Penny was crying before she could properly absorb what the simple statement even meant, sliding her feet across the ground as she made her way to her father's waiting hug. Sheldon watched, knowing it wasn't his place or his comfort she needed this time, but still wishful. Instead, he let Elsie dote on him, bring him a cup of hot tea and prattle on about how busy they were and how they were going to try to visit and bring the whole family with them to Pasadena. Her words were hollow, not because she didn't intend to try, but because it was impossible to organize such a feat, and everyone knew it.

With the formalities gone, with gratitude in due place, and a mug of acceptable tea in her guest's hands, Elsie leaned back in the feeble kitchen chair she occupied and leveled Sheldon with a thin, tired smile. "How's my girl doing?"

Sheldon considered the question for a moment. He wondered how specific her request was, or if she simply wanted a snapshot. _Better too little said than too much,_ he reminded himself, thinking briefly of all the times he'd said one sentence too much and landed himself in hot water. So, wrinkling his nose a little, he found Elsie's eyes and offered an almost imperceptible smile.

"She has reached a state of equilibrium, so to speak. Her nightmares are infrequent and her latest business venture is going extremely well. She's been socializing like she did in the past for the most part."

Elsie smiled, a knowing sparkle in her eye. "You made her happy?"

"I believe most religious and spiritual texts would beg to differ," Sheldon replied uncertainly. It was unclear if Penny's mother was trying to figure out his psycho-babble or reading into it at a deep, intellectual level.

"But the text in _this_ house says Penny hasn't brought home any boy, not even her high school sweethearts, since Junior Prom." Elsie folded her arms. "Ira told her not to bother if she wasn't serious about him."

Sheldon's shoulders, which had tensed inexplicably, relaxed and he felt his face show the same calm. "Oh, well...then I suppose he has nothing to worry about."

"Last I heard, you were her saint, not her boyfriend."

"I don't particularly care for the term 'boyfriend,'" Sheldon replied, as if that answered everything.

Elsie snorted. "Penny does."

"The term is sophomoric; the entire situation posits that Penny is a girl and I am a boy, and someday we may be able to gain an adult's understanding of 'love.'" He made air quotes, getting quite animated about the discussion. "Since I am neither a teenaged boy nor an idiot, I don't care for the term, endearment or not."

"Honey, I hate to break it to you," Elsie stood to let the dirty dishwater drain out of the sink, "but until you're married and actually think about the commitment you might someday undertake, you really are _just a boy._"

"But what's there to think about?" Sheldon asked earnestly, twisting in his chair to watch the woman cross the floor. Her step seemed less steady than before—she almost tripped as Sheldon frowned at the tiles and continued. "No one other than Penny is desirable in any sense of the word. Or are you talking about the legal sense of commitment?" He hemmed and then looked up, eyes bright. "The tax benefits alone would be sufficient reason to consider and adopt a commitment to her—I would be able to share health benefits with her through my position at the university until her business has a steady enough client base and she would be able to collect my inheritance if something were to happen to me."

Elsie bit her tongue to keep from letting out a long sound. She kept her tongue tucked tightly between her teeth as Penny slipped into the room, face splotched with red and tears and Sheldon fidgeted, wanting to stand up. She dragged both suitcases behind her and Sheldon leapt to his feet, clucking his tongue at her as she struggled with his clearly over-packed bag full of all sorts of weather contingent emergency-clothing.

"Where am I taking these?" he asked in a grumpy voice, still frowning at her for not asking for assistance.

Ira leaned against the doorframe to the kitchen, face expressionless. "That's a good question. We only have one guest room since the kids moved out. Elsie?"

"Well, the couch isn't a pullout anymore, and the trundle under Maggie's bed is long gone..."

Penny squared her shoulders. "I'm an adult now. The bed in my room is a queen, anyway."

Her parents traded looks, fluctuating frequently between uncertain, stony, and impassive before Ira turned his shoulders, grunting. Elsie smiled carefully at them as he departed.

"Go on and show him to your room, Penny."

Letting out a huff of both irritation and pleasure, Penny tilted her head down a narrow hallway just off the kitchen and smiled, rolling her eyes. "C'mon, Sweetie. You can poke your head into my senior year of high school."

While he lectured her on the feasibility of time travel and the various inaccuracies of her statement, she led him up the hallway to a thin door hiding a room with lavender walls and a pristine, white duvet on an enormous, soft-looking queen-sized bed. Sheldon let out a little noise, as if he'd never seen a bed that size before, and dropped their bags at the foot, pressing both palms onto the surface to test its integrity.

"But where will you sleep, Penny?"

She laughed and sat beside his hands, still pressed into the mattress. "Right here, genius."

"But Penny!" He looked wildly around the room and then at her wide-open door. "Your parents!"

"Both my brother and sister are married—I'm twenty-eight years old. Those rules are for teenagers and hormones."

Sheldon nodded, accepting her answer begrudgingly. He had no qualms about spending a night with her nearby again, but with her parents across the hall and with his mother in his ear whispering every few moments about Jesus, he could hardly believe her parents had even considered the idea. When Penny had asked to tag along for the first leg of the trip, he'd advised her to pack a blanket for sleeping on the pullout couch, hadn't even asked his mother where she'd be sleeping when he called to warn her of the extra guest.

After a dinner that mostly consisted of Penny jabbering to her mother, Ira drinking dark beer, and Sheldon trying to resist Elsie's demands that he have another helping ("That boy is thinner than a bean pole—Penny, you haven't been cooking for the poor boy, have you?"),he collapsed across the duvet on Penny's bed with a groan and mustered up a glare when Penny giggled at him from the door.

"Welcome to the Midwest—where all your problems can be cured with another helping of mashed potatoes and gravy."

Sheldon just groaned into the feathers of the duvet and tried to kick his shoes off but failed. His stomach felt like it was trying to burst out from beneath its fleshy barrier and explode all over the perfect white coverlet he was currently anguishing on.

"You want to put on your pajamas, Mr. Creosote?"

He actually snorted a little into the duvet, not believing he had caught her reference at all, but rolled over and clutched the tiny swell of a belly the extra helpings had gifted him. "If I'll fit into them."

"I'm going to take a shower, so you have the room to yourself. I'll be back in half an hour."

"Which side of the bed--?"

"I'm a big fan of improv. I'll just fill in the gaps when I get back."

Sheldon watched her go and thought about all the gaps she filled, metaphorically speaking. Mostly, though, he thought about Leonard, who was expecting him back in a few hours and was probably just returning home from work. Picking up his cell phone, Sheldon dragged his feet to his discarded suitcase and tried to pick it up with his foot, not wanting to bend over and possibly lose the dinner he'd spent almost an hour packing into his thin frame.

"What?" Leonard asked by way of greeting.

"Good evening to you, too, Leonard," Sheldon replied stiffly. "I'm calling to let you know I no longer need a ride from the train station."

Sighing, Leonard huffed a moment before muttering, "I'm sorry, okay? I'm not _really_ mad at you. Don't go lashing yourself to bus seats just because...because I'm relapsing to middle school _and_ having a midlife crisis at the same time. I'll be there and I'll be more than civil, I promise."

_Oh. Uh oh._ Sheldon's heart sank a bit (_Physiologically impossible. I'm anticipating hostility—my blood pressure dropped. That's all._) as he cleared his throat. "I still won't need the ride, though I do appreciate your apology and offer, Leonard."

"Did Penny come back early and offer you a ride?" A slight edge had come into Leonard's voice.

"No. I decided to accompany Penny to Omaha."

Leonard didn't speak on the other end. Sheldon held the phone away a moment to see if he'd hung up, but the clock counting down his precious monthly allotment of cell phone minutes ticked on.

Clearing his throat softly, Sheldon put the phone back against his ear. "I'm sorry we weren't more...considerate of your feelings on the matter, but you must understand I _never_ expected for any of this to happen."

"Yeah, me either." Leonard laughed humorlessly, the sound almost robotic over the grainy reception. "So...you and Penny?"

"If you'd rather not talk about it..."

Leonard sighed. "I'd rather not think about it, yeah. But I'll have to eventually; I mean, I can't reasonably expect you to completely abstain from all physical and emotional contact in my presence. Even this hadn't turned into...whatever it is, you're still her best friend, Sheldon. And I was okay with that, or thought I was, anyway."

Sheldon exhaled slowly, forehead wrinkling as he looked at his slightly protruding stomach blandly. "I suppose this is where I'm supposed to offer to wait until you've resolved your issues with your dissolution with Penny before I 'make my move.'"

Leonard laughed, another humorless, dry sound. "I think it's a little late for that. Between Penny being a 'Big Ol' Five' and your...whatever it is, your offer would be moot anyway."

"Oh, don't be mistaken. I couldn't offer now if I wanted to." He bit back the desire to add, "Which I don't."

On the other end, Leonard's voice was sort of tight. "Yeah, well, _thanks,_ buddy."

Puzzled, Sheldon looked up. "You're being sarcastic with me. Let me remind you, Leonard, that I had no part in your break-up with Penny, nor did I actively pursue a romantic relationship with her."

"Which is why it sucks so much to be this angry with you both," Leonard replied in a soft, even tone. "It's like being mad at someone who's died, Sheldon. You can't help how you feel about Penny any more than a victim of a pile-up on the freeway can help the fact they were practically decapitated by the chassis of an oncoming station wagon. I get that much."

Sheldon was quiet a moment, and then quietly replied, "I understand your analogy. And I appreciate the difficulties through which you're wading—all too well, in fact."

"Good. I'm...glad." Leonard cleared his throat and the confidence was back in his voice. "I'll talk to Penny tomorrow or something. You two...have fun."

"She's going to make me go horseback riding, so I feel obligated to ask that you review the contract I had you sign in the event of my untimely death."

"It's right where I left it," Leonard replied in a sneaky, almost playful voice.

"If by that you mean the garbage receptacle in the kitchen, I took the liberty of printing you a fresh copy. You'll find it in the top drawer of your desk. Goodnight, Leonard." He hung up, feeling quite on top of things, and went about getting ready for bed.

When he'd taken care of everything but his usual bathroom routine, he wandered into the hallway and was relieved to see Penny in her usual pink robe, walking toward him with a distracted smile. "Everything all right?"

He lifted his travel toothbrush as an answer and Penny laughed gently, shaking her head as she dipped into the bedroom to change into her pajamas and stake out her half of the bed. Sheldon caught sight, very briefly, of Elsie and Ira preparing for bed themselves, Elsie in bed with reading glasses, thumbing through a Danielle Steele hardcover and Ira starting to doze while the TV flickered across their faces.

In the bedroom, Penny shook her head at Sheldon's notebooks, scattered through his extra suitcase. On the train ride to Texas, as well as to Nebraska, he'd scribbled an unseemly number of equations, notes, and half-baked ideas, only a quarter of which would even merit any second thought. Or, that's what he told her, at least. She sat with one notebook, perusing it carefully, remembering very little of her high school math career. The only parts that looked familiar were entirely algebraic and reminded her of the type of math she did when she balanced her checkbook. These were usually very simple equations, ones Sheldon didn't bother showing his work on, unlike the massive, symbol-ridden doodlings in the margins beside them.

At the bottom of one page, he'd hastily drawn a curve, filled in graph points, "to scale," the notes clarified, and then calculated the slope.

Penny remembered graphing slopes in high school. She remembered Y equals and all that junk, but only vaguely. It didn't seem, to her, like something a physicist would take his time to figure out, not when there were properties regarding the bending of light and matter that required his attention.

Turning the page, he found a flatter line with vertical slits dashed through it. _Current slope, if proportional to arbitrarily assigned 'joy levels,' indicates extreme depression._

She flipped back a few pages and found the date of this notebook. _June 17, 2012._

Her heart racing, she flipped forward more, finding one doodling at the bottom of every page showing a gradual increase in the slope, though sometimes it plateaued. Her cheeks flushed and she reached for Sheldon's wallet on the bedside table, prying the Velcro open. Inside, tucked between his Justice League of America membership card and his punch-card for Soup Plantation, a laminated copy of the photograph he'd shown Dr. Picard so long ago. And, on the train ride to Omaha, the current date, two doodlings, one of the slope of her smile, and another of his. Y equals whatever—the number was the same and for Penny, it just felt _right_.

He reentered the room and rolled his eyes at the sight of her hunched over his notebooks. "You're not trying to give learning physics another spirited go, are you?"

She looked up sharply, her face soft despite the motion, and grinned unabashedly at him. "I lied. There's no _way_ I can only say it once when you have...all _this, _Sheldon. You're ridiculous, you know that? Complete and utterly hopeless. A closet romantic, and I better be that one significant relationship from your palm reading, or so help me..." Kneeling on the side of the bed, Penny dropped his wallet and the photo loudly, walking over to the edge of the mattress without standing and Sheldon instinctively moved closer, yelping softly when she seized the lapels of his robe and pulled him in for a kiss that made him drop his toothbrush and toothpaste to the ground and forget them.

She sighed when she let him go and laughed again, face in his neck, hair still wet from the shower. "I love you."

Privately delighted, Sheldon reached an arm up and wrapped it around her shoulders gingerly, smiling to no one. "And I you."

"Just me?"

"I would think by now it'd be abundantly obvious--"

"Sheldon, please!"

"Only ever you, Penny."

"Okay," she beamed stupidly into the soft fabric of his robe and inhaled deeply, searching for the comfort she knew was there, was always there when she needed it. "Good."

"Penny, what are your feelings on public displays of affection?" His eyes slid to the door behind them.

"We're not in public right now..." She drew back a little to check his eyes, hoping he was asking for future reference, and because he was worried she'd be holding his hand and giggling, kissing at his neck and making him blush all the time.

"Your bedroom door is open," he muttered, looking a little miffed, a little anxious. Penny laughed again (_God, that felt good, didn't it?_) and kissed him again, ignoring his soft squawk as she gently pulled on his lower lip and made that delicious shudder race up his spine. He stood, refusing the desire to sit beside her, or, worse, topple right over on top of her, knowing if Elsie got up to check that the front door was locked or something like that, she'd peer right into their open door and catch an eyeful.

Penny drew away, pulling his lip just a little longer, enjoying his shell-shocked expression, and smiled lazily at him. "For the record, I'm not too big on kissing in _public_ places."

"Fair enough," Sheldon nodded, seeing no foreseeable arguments on the matter, and the same, annoyingly frequent thought bubbled up and, like everything else he thought, he said it.

Penny pinked just a little and reached, rubbing her thumb over his cheek, eyes falling to his lips hungrily. She licked her own. "You can _always_ tell me that, though. Anytime, even if I'm mad at you."

He seemed to notice the frequency of his repetition all at once and blushed again, but seemed indignant as he crowed, "I was under the impression most people would remind their significant others frequently of such things."

"Maybe they should," Penny replied softly and nodded her head toward the door. "Why don't you close that so we can get some sleep?"

Nodding, he backed up and walked to the door to close it, spotting Ira leaned against his bedroom door with a half-smirk on his face. "G'night, Sheldon."

"Goodnight, Sir," Sheldon replied dutifully and shut the door, his heart fluttering madly in his chest. Ira reminded him entirely too much of his own father, who had always instilled a strange mix of fear and admiration in Sheldon, even though he wanted to be nothing like his old man. The warm glimmer in Ira's face made him think of Penny, though, and how tough Penny was, even when she sashayed to and fro, smelling like vanilla and dressing like a California dream.

_"A doctor!"_ Penny imagined her mother whispering to her father as he climbed back into bed. _"And do you see the way he looks at her?"_

She was almost thirty, Sheldon only had until April before he forever left his twenties, and Penny felt that annoying tick-tock that, for the moment, was simply lovely because it didn't feel like the beating of a telltale heart or the driving thump of army boots stomping over a bridge coming to get her. It felt like Sheldon had made up his mind already and she had the choice of going along for the ride or trying to wrest some semblance of control from him just long enough to...

"You realize I have to marry you now," Penny whispered in the dark as Sheldon rearranged his arms yet again. When he lifted them this time, she slid over quickly and put her head on his shoulder, waiting anxiously while he mulled over her declaration.

"First," he began, sounding tired, "as I told your mother, I see no reason to ever regret such a union or be cautious of such a commitment. Second, I should certainly hope so because I have a feeling your father would hunt me down with that rifle in the living room if he found out you weren't 'serious' about me."

She giggled and kissed his cheek, looking up at him adoringly. "I never would have guessed."

"Even you find it unbelievable you decided a man like me could be a viable romantic candidate." He grunted gently. "Fascinating."

"I grew up. And so did you."

"Do you believe good things come out of terrible experiences?" His voice had gotten uncharacteristically insecure, which Penny was not accustomed to hearing, particularly from him.

Penny inhaled sharply, thinking of all the terrible things she'd been forced to endure already, even excluding the events of a muggy May night in Pasadena. Lacing her fingers into his, she bent her head a little and found his chest, pressed her ear against it.

"I think," she began slowly, "there's a reason we don't have time travel to revisit senior year, and why it's so liberating not to have regrets. If I had given up after four years trying to nail an audition in California, I would have come home and done small engine repair with my brother."

"You wouldn't...have been attacked," Sheldon pointed out softly, still insecure.

"And I never would have kissed you, or given you a chance to figure out how you felt about me, or admitted to myself you were actually _there,_ or a lot of things." She rolled to one hip and gave him a pleading look. "I won't say I'm _happy_ the bad things happened to me, but I'm...proud with what I've done with myself since. It's good to see I haven't completely come undone every time."

Sheldon nodded, something that had been nagging him sort of relaxing a bit and he closed his eyes, settling his arm around her gently. Then, before she could fall asleep, he murmured, "Leonard called. I think everything is going to work out favorably. Also, I love you, Penny."


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: So my hands were terribly, terribly swollen due to the pickaxe, ice-saw, and rasp I was using with wild abandon on my ten-foot block of snow. But I won't complain anymore. I'm glad to be back. This chapter gave me horrible trouble. Still, we're moving forward, yes?

Not sure how much further it'll go, but there should be a couple more chapters after this. Will try to give a heads-up before I end it. Then, hopefully...sequel for "The Naked Truth Reciprocation."

*******************

Leonard knew the moment he saw Sheldon and Penny at her apartment door Sunday evening that they'd slept together, and not just an innocent cuddle because of a thunderstorm or because Penny had had another nightmare. He watched like a voyeur, though he was poised rather conspicuously in his own doorway, as Sheldon, his arm casually around Penny's waist, slid away, let her kiss his cheek and thank him again for letting her join him and later for him joining her, and they were both so _thankful_ when she shut the door and Sheldon swung his bag to his shoulder, turning around like nothing had been out of the ordinary at all.

Seeing the look on Leonard's face, Sheldon swallowed very carefully. "Good evening, Leonard. Going out tonight?"

"I was going to grab a pizza for myself since I wasn't sure when you'd be getting back. Should I make it Chinese food instead?"

Sheldon replied through his teeth, saying, "Whatever you want."

Leonard gritted his teeth back. "How thoughtful of you."

They both bristled and Leonard watched Sheldon be the bigger man by turning his back very deliberately, no malice in his movements, and unlock the door, holding it open a moment. "Like I said, pizza, Chinese, whatever. I'm going to unpack and call my mother before she worries my train derailed."

"Sure thing, buddy," Leonard responded, feeling deflated. As long as Penny didn't join them, he might survive the night; no guarantees.

Sheldon would not have objected if Penny had invited herself to dinner. He had no intention of walking across the hall and inviting her, either. He returned to his notebooks, his laptop, and his whiteboard, greeting them as old friends. Enjoying every moment he had the apartment to himself, he wasn't lying when he still admitted he was glad to see Leonard had returned with plastic bags of Chinese food.

Humbled by the small olive branch he'd just offered, Sheldon took up his spot with a happy sigh and accepted chopsticks from Leonard's waiting hand and noted that though Leonard had forgotten the good hot mustard, he had remembered low sodium soy sauce. His broccoli appeared to be diced and not shredded, as well.

"So, what were Penny's parents like?"

Sheldon looked up from his paper container with a funny look on his face. "They were like Penny, but afflicted with age and what Elsie calls 'missed opportunities,' which I believe waxes a little poetic for me, but her father, Ira, _does_ have tales to tell."

"So, tough corn-fed folks?" Leonard smirked, feeling a little more at ease.

"The type that put a Californian physicist on a mare and tell him to hold on to the reins and quit complainin', yes."

Leonard shook his head, refusing to cross through the looking glass fully. "She didn't take you horseback riding for real. No."

"Oh, yes," Sheldon waved his arms, forgetting about his dinner. "It seemed to be incredibly important to her father, which made Penny do that awful high-pitched squealing I hate so much, but it's only present at moments where her emotional happiness exceeds her throat's ability to express herself." Sheldon shook his head, digging viciously through his container. "Honestly, who told them to skimp on the water chestnuts?"

Leonard grunted very softly, looking off to one side, his finger coming up to slide against his front teeth. Sheldon knew he was in deep thought; the recognition made him squirm in his seat a little, feeling as though he were somehow, imperceptibly under a microscope.

"She never told me her parents' names, not in all the time we were dating. And I put off telling _my_ mom about her because I was a little...nervous, embarrassed, selfish..."

"All of the above?" Sheldon offered helplessly.

Leonard's head snapped over and Sheldon flinched just barely. "Maybe you shouldn't be taking social cues from Dear Abby across the hall there since she _obviously_ doesn't know the rule about a guy's best friend dating his ex!"

"Penny and I aren't dating," Sheldon refuted, refusing to relegate it to such terms.

"Right, I forgot: _homo novus_ has some advanced form of mating, don't they?"

Sheldon bit his tongue. _I assure you, Leonard,_ he wanted to snarl, _that if I am indeed a _homo novus,_ that my mating rituals vary little from yours._

But Penny had asked him not to say a word. He hadn't made a promise since he wasn't sure how he'd react to a direct question, but he had grasped the logic behind Penny's request. Leonard, trying his hardest, still bristled at the smallest of facts. It appeared it wouldn't be safe for Sheldon to speak of Penny at all for a while.

"When's our lease up, our rent due?" Leonard asked tiredly and Sheldon felt a spark of panic in his stomach.

"Leonard?"

"I'm turning thirty soon, Sheldon. I have the money—I just don't know _why_ I'm going to try to live in an apartment building with you another year when I can't even eat Chinese food with you right now, knowing you've fucked Penny and I'm still single and _looking._" Leonard stabbed his chopsticks into the container and put it down loudly on the last syllable of his tirade, reaching up to wipe his hands over his hair. "God _damnit._ And I'm sorry, Sheldon; I'm not yelling _at_ you, we're not fighting...I'm just..."

Sheldon relaxed some with Leonard's assurances but he still squirmed and felt his appetite decreasing rapidly. "I anticipated as much, don't get me wrong. I just want you to know my intention was in no way to demonstrate my supposed 'maturity' by welcoming a...relationship of sorts with Penny."

"Maybe that's why I can't stay mad. Then again," Leonard huffed briefly, "I would have loved to hear you guys keeping my feelings in your personal universe—I can't decide what's worse, assuming you were spiting me in some terrible way, or thinking you never once considered how _I'd_ feel if you started dating Penny."

Sheldon's chin fell a little and he recognized the hot, fierce bolt of guilt that raced through him. "I'm truly sorry, Leonard. If I'd known what I was looking at at the time, I would have alerted you, though I don't think it would make _that_ much of a difference."

Leonard sighed, sounding more defeated than ever. "You're right."

"Am I? I've been on _fire_ lately, Leonard!" Sheldon sounded delighted as he picked up his carton again. "Did you spend any time with Wolowitz or Koothrapalli while I was gone?"

Leonard smiled, opened his mouth to tell a story, and helplessly fell back on yet another alarming disturbance in Sheldon's routine. "You missed a week of work, Sheldon."

"From my stored vacation days--"

"Yeah, but you've only missed work for traveling, your father's funeral, and Penny's trial."

"Mee-Maw informed me of a mandatory family function which I had to attend—more business about my father's estate, and then the train schedule sort of took over from Omaha on out." He looked up at Leonard very carefully, treading lightly. "Elsie had asked Penny to invite me, before we left for Galveston. She wanted to meet me, so she says."

"Where did you sleep at her folks' house?" Leonard's breathing came in sort of short.

Sheldon crossed one leg over the other and frowned at nothing. "Do these questions really help you in any way? What are you trying to glean from me?"

"Just answer the damn question, Sheldon!" he snapped. "Answer it!"

"There was no pull-out couch and Penny's old room had a queen sized mattress in it, so I stayed in there," Sheldon exploded, glaring hatefully at Leonard. "Happy now?"

Leonard swayed in his seat a little. "I knew when I saw you in the hall you'd slept with her."

"I'm assuming you're referring to sexual intercourse and not--"

"Don't pretend you're gonna keep calling it that. Like you're _so_ impartial to the whole thing."

Sheldon stood up to dispose of his suddenly putrid-smelling dinner. "I am impartial to it. Just because Penny has weaseled her way into a very significant facet of my life doesn't mean I base my self-worth on women, sex, or personal relationships."

"Everything's relative on a sliding scale of Penny," Leonard quipped and stood up to join Sheldon to throw away his own rotten meal. "You're waxing poetic, Sheldon."

"I love her," Sheldon replied with a small tremor of irritation in his voice. "Can you say the same?"

"I can say it, sure," Leonard replied stupidly, emphasizing without changing his tone that anyone could _say_ whatever he or she wanted.

"If you're going to keep trying to slice away at me verbally like that, I propose I figuratively 'throw it all out there' so we can at least avoid all this wretched tension." Sheldon squared off across from Leonard, folding his arms pointedly. "Does that appease you?"

"Sounds _fine._"

"At Penny's celebratory dinner, when she and I danced, she told me I was her best friend, that she loved me. She gave me no opportunity at first to reciprocate. When you came home the week before I started making plans to travel to Texas, she had just asked me to tell her how I felt about her, and I had just _done_ so when you came in. She slept on the couch at my mother's house and spent the evening while I was with Missy or in meetings with Buck and his two mongrels." Sheldon inhaled and thinned his lips.

"She went with my mother to my father's gravesite in the morning, then we boarded our train to Omaha. When we arrived, her father called her Slugger again. Her mother thanked me for 'all you've done for our daughter' and they agreed that Penny and I should share sleeping quarters.

"In the morning, she and her parents forced me onto a horse and gave me a tour of the farm. Her mother over-fed me at dinner for two nights in a row and I watched Penny do a real live hog-tying. She designed a hat from an old gingham shirt I'd refused to wear while horseback riding and last night, while her father was at Poker Night and her mother was at Bingo Night, Penny made a significant breakthrough."

Leonard had made tight fists at his side during Sheldon's emotionless retelling of his week in Omaha. The details he'd left out, the little ones that had fed Leonard's ire the past few weeks, were what killed him. He was leaving out if he initiated the sexual relationship, or had he let Penny take full control. Did she come, did Sheldon know what was happening—was he any _good_ at it? Did she cry afterwards? Did they hold each other, get dressed, change the sheets, or make a glass of warm milk naked in the kitchen?

Sheldon settled his feet a little wider apart. "That's all you really need to know, isn't it?"

"I need to know you won't hate me if I ask that when I move out in December, I ignore you both for a few months until I can be the guy I want to be for both of you," Leonard heard himself reply in a much too adult sounding tone. "Until then, I'm gonna just...make myself scarce."

"Leonard, that's highly impractical considering--"

"I want you both to be happy, so give me some time, okay? I don't want to be mad at you, Sheldon. I really don't." Leonard walked toward his room, a glazed look in his eye. "I just don't remember being the fifth wheel."

The fight left Sheldon—a feeling he didn't like in the slightest. Wilting dejectedly, he watched as Leonard paused at the end of the hall.

"And by the way, Sheldon...it started _way_ before Penny's celebratory dinner. You just weren't paying attention until then."

***********

Leonard spent almost the entire month of September working on his draft, and then his second draft, and then celebrating Sheldon's latest discovery and proven theorem, honestly lifting his wine glass in pleasure for his friend, who accepted applause with an odd humility.

He submitted the nomination paperwork to the only person he knew who was in any way connected to the committee in Stockholm, and after a few dinners and heated discussions, he agreed to submit Leonard's nomination with several key changes. "I have to make it my own, if only for plagiarism's sake," he explained. Leonard talked him into coming by the apartment for dinner one night and made sure to invite Howard, Raj, and Penny, too.

Sheldon was, despite Leonard not telling him what exactly the entire evening was about, on his best behavior. He seemed to be glowing a little, completely at ease and not overly upset over small mishaps, though he did get squeaky and start to lecture when Raj spilled soda on the coffee table near Penny's open laptop.

At very gentle prompting on Leonard's part, Sheldon drew up two whiteboards worth of explanation; he went to work describing his newest discoveries and experiments to prove, once and for all, that matter was arranged in string-like patterns. While they were still some pretty significant discoveries away from cementing anything in physics textbooks, Sheldon sounded so certain.

"Oh, that?" He pointed vaguely at the symbol he'd drawn to represent rate of entropy in black holes. "Penny made it—it's a sort of unit, I think. Anyway, I just got used to it being in the equation—staring at the same thing all day every day. Here," he muttered, lifting a hand and wiping it away. "Make more sense now? As I was saying, the natural log taken here..."

Leonard only relaxed and felt at ease when the letter was in the mail, stamped and addressed tp the committee. He celebrated alone that night, sitting atop a musty barstool in some dive outside Pasadena, lifting a drink to Sheldon first, and then a second to Penny—the one that got away.

***********

They ate Thanksgiving dinner in Sheldon's apartment, where Leonard had packed most of his things already. Her parents flew in with her sister and a letter from her brother the night before and stayed at a hotel two rooms down from Sheldon's mother, grandmother, and sister. Buck, who had reconciled with his ex-wife for the holiday, was with her family in Tampa.

Penny burned the rolls and Sheldon panicked about having an asthma attack. His mother started talking about Sheldon's long history of panic attacks and Elsie looked at Penny as if wondering why exactly Mary Cooper sounded so relaxed about everything. Ira got a little and teary-eyed before the blessing of the turkey, which he was asked to perform due to George Cooper's absence. An out-of-practice Christian, Ira did his best and told them all how proud he was of Penny, and how happy he was to know she would soon be in safe hands, moving into Sheldon's apartment.

The news went over smoothly as far as Sheldon's family went. Though Mary Cooper had originally looked a little hesitant about the whole thing, she very quickly decided to ignore the obvious connotations of such a commitment and spent the rest of the night exulting over the fact she might have grandchildren someday after all.

When Penny sneaked out to go to her apartment and get the can of whipped cream she'd left in her fridge, she ran directly into Sheldon's grandmother, who was whispering heatedly to Sheldon. They both smiled at her warmly as she passed, a confused look on her face, and were gone when she returned to the hall, dessert topping in hand.

Sheldon suffered a terrible glowering from his entire family for stating the facts; Penny's pumpkin pie, still warm from the oven, far surpassed anything his mother had ever baked, even the peach cobbler he'd grown to rely on for comfort and safety.

Ira fell asleep in the armchair listening to Sheldon diagnosing all his problems with corn cross-germination. Penny slipped her hand into his and snuggled up to his side, loving the sound of him so naturally mixed among her mother's breathy chuckle and his sister's teasing twang.

Some time after Ira stirred and mumbled something about getting back to the hotel before he was too tired to drive, Leonard returned from a terribly awkward dinner his parents had insisted he attend an hour away at a distant cousin's house. The attempt, however genuine, was an ill-conceived measure and had ended predictably. The divorce hadn't left anyone particularly bitter, but it had made every awkward moment more biting and painful.

As he entered the apartment, watching Penny's parents—just like he'd pictured them—gathering their jackets and patting pockets for keys, he felt Mary Cooper level him with a hard stare. Sheldon's grandmother, a short, thin woman with long hair that was practically snow white except for a few stubborn gray streaks by her temples, waved hello to him but then redirected her attention to Penny, who was telling a story, waving her arms animatedly.

"I just _love_ seeing the look on someone's face the first time they see real snow—my cousins from Arizona came to visit one Christmas and I took them outside the morning after their flight to build a snowman. They never wanted to go back in!"

Penny's mother yawned very gently and rolled her eyes at Ira's slightly tipsy chuckle to himself as he tried to navigate his foot into his boot.

"Sheldon, sweetie, we'll see you in the morning, okay? Breakfast is our treat—you just tell us where to meet you in town, okay?" Elsie walked over and smiled delightedly when Sheldon tore himself from Penny's grip and stood up, reaching as naturally as Leonard had ever seen to embrace the older woman like his own mother.

"I'll let you know my final decision tomorrow morning. Feel free to stop by for coffee with Penny before, of course. She doesn't like to wake up as early as you must," Sheldon rolled his eyes very sweetly, subtly jabbing Penny while holding a curious note of adoration still.

Elsie laughed, tilting her face to kiss Sheldon's cheek, which was somehow, inexplicably, still within her reach. "You're a doll. Where's my husband?"

Sheldon turned, finally releasing Elsie, and found Ira sipping a glass of water in the kitchen. Smiling, he fetched Penny's father and steered him toward the door, looking just a touch tired as he did so.

"Goodnight, Sir. Have a safe trip to your hotel," Sheldon called gently as Ira wandered toward the stairs.

Turning, Ira fixed Sheldon with a slightly unfocused but entirely deliberate glare. "Son, you better stop calling me 'sir,' and quick."

Confused, Sheldon tilted his head and wondered what on earth would be a suitable replacement—his title and surname seemed a bit informal, but he had not been invited to call the man by his first name, so his preferred choice had seemed logical.

And then, realization slowly melting over his face, Sheldon blushed and looked up, seeing the relief on Ira's face when they recognized each other. _Son, you better stop calling me 'sir,' and quick._

Sheldon swallowed. _It's been a while. The words sound phony now._

"Goodnight, Sheldon!" Elsie called loudly, more to coax her husband downstairs than to scold Sheldon for dawdling.

"Goodnight," he replied, too afraid to say it now, tonight, but Ira didn't press the matter; he simply turned and slumped down the stairs with a complaint about the city traffic and having to wake up early to drive again in the morning.

When Sheldon turned and shut the door, seeing his roommate, his entire family, and Penny slouched around the room, tired and grinning stupidly at one another, he felt like he'd entered some alternate universe.

"We'd better hit the road too, Shelly." Mary stood up and winked at her son knowingly. "Give you kids some time alone. You need anything else cleaned up before we split?"

"No, I think the rest of the dishes just have to soak," Penny promised and put her wine glass on the coffee table, standing up to hug all three women goodbye. "It was great to see you all again—so nice to have you meet my parents. They just loved you all, I know it!"

Sheldon's grandmother laughed throatily and patted Penny's back firmly, like she was a show-pony who'd just placed first at the junior rodeo. "Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

"Hilarious," Penny agreed and kissed the woman's cheek. "If you're awake, I'll have Sheldon call you to invite you to breakfast with my folks."

"Sounds precious, Sunshine. We'll be sure to get our hides moving in no time," she patted Penny's hair affectionately, less master-to-pony in a way, and looked over at her curious grandson with a slight huff of disappointment. "Keep him in line for me. We'll see you in the morning."

"Bye, Missy." Penny waved and then smiled once more at both Mrs. Coopers. Penny had no grandmothers left—both had died while she was in high school. It had been years since she'd said anything like it, and yet, easy as breathing, she called, "I'll be sure to keep your precious Moon-Pie in line, Meemaw."

And they all laughed, even Leonard chuckling despite himself, while Sheldon glowered and blushed, hurrying them out the door. The moment they were gone, he pressed his back against the dartboard and reached up to press the heels of his hands into his eyes, deflating as he sunk against the door and started to slide to the bottom. Penny frowned, walking over to snap him out of whatever panic attack he was entering when he looked up at her sharply.

"Your father wants me to start calling him 'Dad,' I think."

Leonard made a graceful exit to his bedroom, searching for the spark of irritation or rage that had led to his flight instinct, but found none. Only an impersonal flicker of jealousy remained, something that told him the time for Comic-Con and building robots on his weekends would ultimately fill his years with mirth, but not satisfaction.

Penny waited a few long moments before speaking, trying to decide if Sheldon understood the deeper meaning of her father's unexpectedly sweet invitation, or if he was simply hung up on the fact he had his _own_ father. A man who was deceased.

"Sweetie, it's just because he likes you. He wants you to feel comfortable around him. You're used to treating people like my father as if they're going to twist your ear and haul you off to a football game against your will. You're an adult now and my dad _loves_ you. Even when you confuse the absolute breath out of him, he's interested."

Leonard returned to the living room to let his mother inside; she'd texted only a moment ago to say she heard heated muttering behind the door and didn't want to intrude. When he let her in, she looked pointedly at Sheldon and Penny for a moment before sighing and sitting on the end of the couch primly, her coat draped over her forearms in perfect folds.

"I'm somewhat disappointed, Dr. Cooper."

Sheldon waited for more, heard nothing, saw nothing, and felt Penny tense up ever so slightly. Rounding his shoulders spectacularly, Sheldon lifted an eyebrow. "I'm decidedly apathetic to your declaration, Dr. Hofstadter."

"I suppose all you can hope for is that your work will be appreciated now since it's almost impossible for people of Penny's ilk to understand the massive commitment one undertakes when his life is dedicated to science."

Sheldon wanted to tell her he could still dedicate his everything to it, that Penny _did _understand, that they were fine and no one ought to be worrying on their behalf. But he knew by the way his stomach didn't twist and grate on itself that he wasn't desperate anymore. His intelligence had lent itself to physics and he had loved it with every particle of his being. He still loved the work immensely and felt important, fulfilled, _happy._ But when others his age had started to push him away, to call him a freak, to set him farther apart than he consciously set himself, he had resigned himself to unraveling the universe.

It had seemed like a big enough, satisfying enough task at the time. He had operated for a good many years without needing anything more than physics, numbers, and the never-ending appeal of the unknown universe. In fact, he had for the longest time considered physics in general to be much more than anything a normal person could handle. He was _evolved,_ not ostracized. He was _special,_ not shunned.

"C'mon, Sheldon," Penny urged, her voice sounding defeated and tired. "You can come over tonight and work on that black hole thingie while Leonard and his mother finish packing."

"Did dinner go well?" Leonard asked, trying to let Penny know he wasn't too cowardly to at least speak to her today.

She smiled, relaxing a little. "It was better than I could have hoped for. Everyone got along—food was perfect."

"Penny made a pumpkin pie that surpassed even my own _mother's_ usual Thanksgiving pie," Sheldon excitedly interjected and put his hand on his stomach in warm memory. "With careful monitoring, I think she may be an adequate baker _and_ seamstress."

"And with a couple more months of careful monitoring, maybe you won't manage to say just the _wrong_ thing," Penny sighed and slipped her fingers into Sheldon's hand, drawing it away from his stomach. "Please? I'll mute the TV and you can work on that board you left in my living room."

"Okay," Sheldon followed, a little smile lifting the corners of his mouth, and he paused, looking pointedly at the space on the wall beside Penny's head. Leonard and his mother had stood and were almost to the end of the hall when Leonard paused and looked back down toward the doorway where they were still poised, hand-in-hand, Sheldon halted with his heels dug in, trying to remember, aching to find the knowledge he suddenly had to recall.

Penny stood on the tips of her toes and kissed the side of his chin very gingerly, not wanting to jolt him out of his reverie too suddenly. "Sheldon, honey..."

"I'm not entirely sure what I should be working on at the moment. I feel sort of...settled. My usual incessant curiosity is sated for the moment." He gave her a startled, confused look. "Did you put something in the pie, Penny?"

She laughed, rubbing a palm over the side of his neck. "No, Sweetie. Just come over and you can pick out a movie, okay? Let's just enjoy a good Thanksgiving. I taped the parade—wanna watch that? I know you missed most of it while you were putting together the turkey for the oven."

"Sickeningly domestic," Leonard's mother whispered and shook her head, disappearing into Leonard's room without another word.

Leonard turned, wanting to disagree, but when he looked back at Sheldon and Penny, he couldn't argue. She had stood to smooth his sweater down his shoulders a little and stopped to kiss him very politely on the corner of the mouth. When she drew away, the look of realization dawned on his face and he hurried to follow her to her apartment at last.

*****************

Sheldon rarely indulged in outright romantic moods; what made sense to him, he adapted into his schedule. What eluded his logic, however, was impossible to convince him of. Flowers, chocolates, Hallmark cards...none of it made any sense to him. Penny, despite her efforts to explain to him how the objects show the thought behind them, he would simply roll his eyes and give up.

A month and a half ago, on Valentine's Day, she had been adequately informed of the _thought_ he had for her without a single meaningless gift. Granted, he still hid a soft, velvet box in the back corner of his closet where he thought she'd never pry, but the timing hadn't been right.

Today was the right day. Penny was humming happily under her breath and he could tell from the extra bounce in her step she felt like she looked positively radiant, which she did.

Reading up on the typical engagement process had done very little for his confidence—it seemed most men either accepted a very traditional bend-on-one-knee and present-a-ring approach, while others went to great lengths to get their fiancées to swoon wildly.

But she knew it was coming. Technically, it had been _Penny_ who had told him they'd be getting married—that he'd better make an honest woman out of her if he wanted her father to refrain from shooting him in the head and finding space on their acres of farmland.

Still, it was normal to have fears, anxieties. His mother cried when he called to sigh and bemoan the lingering tension in his belly. His sister shrieked for a moment about her little brother getting married before her. Buck tried to convince him marriage would only lead to heartache, divorce, and alcoholism.

Penny just kissed him right beneath his ear, somewhere on his neck, and his mouth would fall open, his eyes would clamp shut, and he'd feel the familiar shiver racing up his spine. He balked just thinking about putting together a wedding for Penny, who now designed clothes for a living. Between his perfectionism and her wanton romanticism, he imagined white horses, doves, rose petals, and card-stock nameplates.

She rolled out of bed with her typical grouchiness, grumbling about driving him to work for the millionth time. After coffee, a quick run of a brush through her hair, and a light brush of makeup across her sleep-addled face and she was ready. He reminded her twice to put on slippers and she forgot, having to unlock the door to 4A and retrieve flip-flops.

In the car, Sheldon turned the radio down in steady increments before finally turning it off. He clutched the velvet box his grandmother had handed him at Thanksgiving, terrified of the speed bumps on Euclid Avenue sending the precious jewelry hurtling out the cracked window and into the street.

Clearing his throat importantly, he waited for her to turn into the driveway to the school and find a place to drop him off. She shot him her usual teasing grin and took a sip from her coffee thermos, looking quite pleased with herself.

"Have a good day at school, Sweetie."

"Charming," he replied dryly and turned to face her a bit more, turning the box over in his hands. He waited for her to put her thermos down, and heaved a sigh of relief as she spotted what he held and nearly dumped the coffee into his lap in surprise.

"Sheldon..."

He frowned very gently and worried the worn spot on the box he'd created through weeks of obsessively running his thumb over the same corner. "I called your father last night. It may be old-fashioned, but I wanted to make sure I was following the proper protocol."

She threw the car into park now, quickly adjusting so she was facing him, hands clamping over her mouth to contain the high-pitched squeal she knew he both loved and loathed. "Sheldon!"

"Surely I'm not _surprising_ you, Penny!" he admonished gently, his voice falling to a mumble as he looked nervously outside the window where a few of his colleagues slowed as they passed. A few necks craned and he turned to shield them a little more, holding out the box to her, eyes low. "This was inevitable."

"Do it right, Sheldon," she insisted, refusing to take the box. "Have you even opened it?"

"Meemaw gave it to me; my grandfather had it specially made for her but she stopped wearing it after he passed on." Sheldon pushed his hand out a little further, looking her in the eye now. "I've seen it. It's yours now."

Penny cleared her throat, spread her fingers, and fixated the box with a longing but instructive stare. "Sheldon, I want to spend the rest of my disgustingly perfect life with you and your tantrums, oatmeal days, and whiteboards. I want you to know I'll _always_ need you and I'll _always_ be there when you need me."

"Acceptable," he replied, clearing his throat as it tightened. She opened the box and reached to cup her cheeks with her hands again, biting back a shriek of delight.

Sensing she was giving him a cue, Sheldon tipped the ring into his other hand and reached, tearing her left hand from her face. "Penny, this is when you say 'Yes' so I'm not late to work. It's only a formality, of course..."

"I have to be asked a question to say 'Yes,' Sheldon."

Even when totally incapacitated, she still had a dry, biting wit. His heart swelled and he grinned at her wryly, knowing she was waxing poetic and wanting, just this once, for him not to be factual, honest, and frank. While it was a refreshing feeling to know when he told her she looked beautiful he wasn't stating an opinion, but what he considered to be a cold, hard fact, it was nice to hear he was _biased_ toward her.

"I buy coffee at the grocery store even though I don't drink it, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon," he said instead. "You are still my best friend, and now that we've agreed on a romantic component to that friendship, I feel no remorse or trepidation in telling you I love you."

"You tell me often," she agreed in a hushed whisper, eyes brimming with tears. "I should tell you more."

He slipped the ring on her finger, pleased it fit, though it did seem just a touch loose. "I have always loved things beyond my control, beyond my understanding. I've spent my entire life studying and trying to understand the mechanics of all the matter in the universe. To marry you would be an extension of my life's work—though, you may be a more rewarding prize."

"You don't have to choose between us," she promised, laughing despite his earnest declaration. "Me and your first lady love, science."

Blushing just a little, Sheldon looked once more at the spectators coolly trying to linger just on the periphery of the car, peering in shamelessly. "I know. So, Penny...marry me?"

"Only if you marry me back."

He rolled his eyes at her, comfortable in the fact she always managed to surprise him even when he expected such a reaction from her. "Say it, Penny."

"I love you, and _yes._" She held her new ring up and examined it under the early morning sunlight, delighted and flushed with pleasure. Snapping her fingers, she reached and cupped the side of his face. "Hang on, I've got something _you_ can wear today, too. To commemorate the day of your engagement."

Confused, Sheldon started to backpedal, wondering where on Earth she was going with such an unconventional gift, but she kissed him and he never did well when it came to stopping Penny when she wanted physical intimacy. The kisses were deep; she was in no hurry, even as she slipped away and started on that spot by his neck that got his hands twisting into the fabric of her t-shirt. It was too late by the time he realized she was playing a sophomoric trick on him and leaving, in very plain sight, a garish red hickey for his colleagues and friends to see.

Smacking her lips as she slid away, Penny made a great show of dragging her hand across the back of her mouth. "It's a beaut," she promised. "Make sure you show it off. I sure will." She held out her hand again, smiling at the intricate knotting and looping of the gold and diamond, mesmerized.

Sheldon kept his hand clamped over his neck a moment, pouting to himself, and then sighed and let his hand down, leaning to kiss her cheek once more. She waved at him, an overly chipper grin on her face as she pulled away and swung back out into traffic. Despite his hundreds of warnings about texting while driving, his phone alerted him as he walked through the halls toward his office that Penny had updated her Twitter.

_PennyBlossom23 engaged to that beautiful mind genius guy with the big red hickey on his neck_

He made it exactly twelve more steps down the hall before Howard's voice came ripping from the engineering wing: "What the _frack?!_"

*****************

Raj burst into tears at the engagement dinner, embarrassing himself and everyone else as he bravely stuck it out, dabbing at the corners of his eyes with his unused, perfectly starched cloth napkin. Despite some nervous looks among most patrons, Leonard stood and made a perfectly sweet, short speech wishing them well. Penny had the strangest feeling he meant every word of it.

The champagne flowed at every table as toasts were lifted in their honor. Ethan and Chloe, two of Penny's dearest friends outside her precious _Star Trek_ fanatics, were positively brimming with good things to say.

"Where will you have the ceremony?" Andika demanded to know, squatting next to Penny at her table. "Santa Barbara? Hollywood?"

"Actually, I believe it's customary for a couple to return to one of their hometowns, where the families can reasonably travel for the event." Sheldon frowned gently into his champagne glass, feeling the bubbles in his nose. "That, or Hawaii, but I don't like to fly."

Penny patted his arm. "It'll probably be in Texas or Nebraska. I'm holding out for Fiji, though."

"And I told _you_ if we're going to select an island, it'll be one with real scientific value so I'm not bored to tears after the initial honeymoon buzz has worn off," Sheldon snapped gently. "Java, maybe."

"You're not an anthropologist, Sheldon," Leonard needlessly reminded him. "Though I could probably get you set up in a nice hotel; my dad's there doing some research."

Penny rounded on Leonard. "You think you'll be able to make it to the wedding? I mean, if you're moving to start a new job somewhere out east...will you have the time? The money?"

"I'll try my hardest," he promised, squeezing her hand, trying not to look sad. "Have you set a date?"

"Oh, yes! This is when we're supposed to announce vague plans, isn't it? And everyone is supposed to sign the guest book so we can have current addresses for invitations." Sheldon stood and hefted the untouched guestbook. "Attention!"

Penny begged for a fall wedding, and Sheldon, who was indifferent so long as he wouldn't have to travel anywhere during inclement weather, agreed. So, announcing a date in October seemed logical. Leonard bit the back of his hand as Sheldon started passing the book around. He scribbled down his mother's address in New Jersey. "She'll be able to forward it to me, wherever I am," he assured Penny as he passed the book to Raj, who had finally pulled himself together only to burst into fresh tears at the sappy picture Penny had taped to the front of the ivory guestbook—Penny squeezing Sheldon's face into a soft smile, kissing his forehead.

It appeared all the champagne and celebrating severely decreased his bladder's capacity in some way; shortly after the announcing and fresh round of applause died down, he excused himself to the restroom. Upon exiting the mind-numbingly filthy stall, having refused to use a urinal in the first place, he found himself staring right into the happy but threatening face of Ethan Hardwick, Penny's friend and football buddy.

"Heya, Sheldon."

Sheldon nodded curtly, squeezing around him for the sink, where he squirted a pile of soap onto his hands and started to scrub. "Ethan. Enjoying yourself?"

"Oh, of course. It's great to see that big smile back on Penny's face, you know?"

"It is wonderful, isn't it?" Sheldon smiled very carefully at Ethan's reflection as he scrubbed and reached for the hot water. "Were you waiting for the bathroom to be vacated?"

"No, I actually wanted to talk to you." Ethan stepped forward, boxing Sheldon in the corner of the tiny bathroom where the sink was stuffed away. "Penny's brother is still in prison—so I'm stepping in. I've seen how happy you make her and I don't want to threaten you because I know for a fact Penny would have me hogtied and whipped before I could explain my honorable intentions. So," he cleared his throat noisily, "you better take care of her, you hear me? I don't want any late-night phone calls from her asking me to come pick her up and give her a place to stay, I don't want to hear any complaints at all. You take _care_ of her like you have been, all right? Can we make that deal?"

Sheldon shook the water off his fingers and reached for the paper towel dispenser, pursing his lips. "Rest assured; Queen Penelope is in very capable hands."

**************

Penny knew something was fishy when she caught an uncharacteristic summer cold, which then evolved into a summer flu, which then fell into what was undeniably _not_ a flu. Sheldon, for all his observations, only knew that Penny was sleeping in Leonard's room for a little under a week, and despite her ritualistic trips to the bathroom to throw up around five in the morning, insisted it wasn't contagious and refused to be relegated to the other room again. So he cradled her, facing toward the door and away from his body, and listened to her steady, clear breathing, felt her warm but not feverish skin, and still felt a shot of tightness explode up her back like clockwork before she swung her legs over the side of the bed and bolted for the toilet.

She didn't know what else to do, who else to call. Biting the bullet, she called her sister, sitting defeatedly on the edge of the tub in the apartment she now shared with Sheldon and lowered her chin, chewing on her lip.

"Penny!" her sister cried by way of greeting. "How's my all-grown-up sister? Not already calling because of a spat with your white knight, are you? You know my advice—invest in a shotgun and don't let him think he gets to wear the pants _all_ the time."

Not knowing how to ease into the conversation, or even to point it gently where it needed to go, Penny replied by blurting, "Maggie, I'm pregnant."

She expected a pause, a moment for Maggie to digest and figure out what to say, but immediately after the words fell from her lips, Maggie let out a scream of joy and started jabbering incoherently until Penny shouted for a halt.

"Hey! I'm kind of in a pickle here, okay? I don't know what Sheldon thinks about any of this, and I _know_ his mother is a little on the religious side. We might have to make this a shotgun wedding!"

Maggie scoffed. "Oh, please! I haven't met her, but from what Mom says about Momma Cooper, I'm sure she'll be more excited about grandchildren than anything else. Would she really make Sheldon give up the only girl who's ever shown interest in him?"

"I'm not the only one," Penny defended viciously. "If the boys were the Beatles, Sheldon would have to be the cute one, the Paul McCartney of the group."

"Which begs the question why you dated John in the first place, if you knew he'd find his soulmate with Yoko, which you are _not,_" Maggie returned neatly. "You're going to be a mother, Penny. Just think of it like that. Not, 'Omigad I'm having a baby what am I going to do?' This isn't happening _to_ you. You're impacting the world around you in ways you can't even understand—it's terrifying and nothing feels normal, but it's just so right at the end of the day, I promise."

Penny bowed her head, feeling a little guilty. "I know, and I did want kids—I just never bothered to ask Sheldon. He's always gone on about his 'progeny' this, his 'legacy' that..."

"Translate that; he wants to raise little geniuses with you. They'll be fashionable, witty, and brilliant. Not to mention cute. What's the worry?"

"How about I still have to kill the spiders in the bathtub? Or he still expects sponge baths when he doesn't feel well? He doesn't drive, he's impatient, rude, and mean sometimes. I've known the man since I moved to Pasadena and he still gets under my skin sometimes." She quaked a moment, staring hard at the immaculate tiling in the bathroom. "It's just easy to list his faults right now and I hate that."

Maggie sighed carefully. "When you first moved to California and hung out with these guys, he had no clue how to handle a woman in a crisis. He learned, didn't he?"

"I know he'll learn to be a good father—with all his study skills and resources, he'll probably be ready before I am." She laughed tiredly, rubbing at her face with the back of her hand. Today she'd tied her hair back in anticipation for a vomiting marathon. She still felt puffy, blotchy, and none too appealing, but Sheldon seemed totally indifferent. If anyone would watch her balloon to the size of a whale, give birth to a screaming baby, and still tell her she was beautiful, strong, and better for it all, it would be Sheldon. And he would tell her all of this with the same tone he used when describing the way particles behave as a wave when passing through those sheets he was always going on about.

"He might be a good father already," Maggie said softly. "I mean, who taught him to go to that therapist with you? To call those girls when they were sniffing around for forgiveness?" She sighed dramatically. "He went with you to the police station and told you he thought you were brave after you told your story to the cops. He testified at your trial, Penny. The man would do anything for you, honestly!"

The crushing guilt came back and she doubled over, knowing she was about to enjoy another perk of pregnancy; hormones _and_ nausea simultaneously. "Am I asking too much?"

"To him, I bet you're not a burden at all, honey. I bet he's thanking his lucky stars he got to be there for you when you needed him."

Sisters were the best, Penny concluded when she hung up the phone and hurled herself in front of the toilet without mercy. _Sisters like Maggie are best friends who have to love you no matter what. Even when I got us thrown out of our hotel in Chicago when we tried to run away from home. Even when Timmy got arrested and I swore I'd never speak to him again._

She called Chloe to apologize for having to miss yet another work day. Without divulging the news, Penny gathered up her wits and got into the car to drive to Cal-Tech and find Sheldon's office. These days it was particularly nice to swing her hips through those stark halls and watch heads swivel, to listen with half an ear to the whispers. _"That's Dr. Cooper's fiancée," _someone would whisper urgently. _"The one who designed Jessica Alba's dress for the Oscars—yeah, that one._"

Penny opened Sheldon's door without knocking and closed it behind her without another word. Sheldon, poised in front of his whiteboard, didn't turn as he tapped his marker against his teeth

"You should have the common courtesy to knock before you interrupt a brilliant mind at work," Sheldon tersely reminded her. She watched his hand float up and rest on the side of his neck and she smiled wickedly, wondering if he was still impulsive covering her favorite spot on him to mark. He accused her of being immature, of replaying her high school years on him, but he also knew the unmistakable pride of seeing her walk around bearing a visual sign she, in some primal way, belonged to him.

Penny nodded, knowing he couldn't see her. "Yeahhh," she dragged the word out, looking at the floor shyly as he spun around, wide-eyed at her appearance. "I know I should, but I was hoping you wouldn't hear me so I could watch you work for a minute. You're fascinating to observe, Dr. Cooper."

Looking at her wringing hands and tense expression as she finally glanced out of his carpeting, he felt drawn to his board again, longing to at least reach a logical conclusion before setting it aside.

Penny sighed, but gestured to his work. "Go on, I can sit and wait. I need to think a minute anyway."

Sheldon fumbled, groped, and then dropped the marker, feeling embarrassed as he bent and chased after it. "I-I'm sorry, Penny," he stuttered, falling to his knees to capture the rolling marker quicker. "Is it important? It can always wait—nothing's about to make my board spontaneously combust. At least the likelihood is extremely small."

She smiled as he stood nervously and held the marker with both hands, terrified it would fly out his fingers and start drawing on the walls if he loosened his grip. "Relax, Sweetie. I love you and I'm...I'm not going anywhere." _Unless you want me to._ She shook her head briskly. I'm_ sick of the Pity Party, all right? He might not be over the moon, but he's certainly not going to ask for the ring back, send you packing, and move back to Texas. Let him finish up his thingie and give you his full attention._

"I'm afraid I won't be able to focus enough on my work now to complete a satisfactory rough draft of my work," Sheldon admitted, trying to read her face. "You might as well tell me now."

Sighing, Penny sat on the corner of his desk, leg pressed against his. He didn't move away, though he did put the marker down and fix her with a piercing, demanding blue stare. "Penny, please."

She nodded, waving at him, asking him to shut up. He obeyed, reluctantly. Squirming, tentative, he leaned over and kissed her forehead before sliding his lips to her neck. She exhaled silently, a great gust of hot air across his cheek and he shut his eyes, finding her lips. Despite being totally impossible and nothing more than a pipe dream, he imagined he could feel her trusting him, remembering how strong he'd been for her, appreciating what he offered to her. In return, he knew she wasn't there to tear the ring off her finger and walk away forever. He relaxed into the kiss and pulled away after a few long, anguished moments.

Even with the peace of mind that came from her kiss, Sheldon felt a pang of angst erupt in his stomach. "Tell me before I lose my appetite for lunch and destroy my entire schedule for the day."

Penny rolled her eyes magnificently and draped her arms around his neck, groaning as she pushed her forehead into his clavicle. "Sheldon, for _once_ can I be more important than the schedule?"

"Sometimes I don't think _you're _designed to keep me healthy and happy," Sheldon replied smartly but dipped himself into her embrace, hugging her back for a moment. "You're tormented about something and came to tell me. Usually when it doesn't involve me, you start talking before you shut the door. I have to conclude this matter concerns me greatly and your approach, quite frankly, is highly unpleasant. I feel like a scolded schoolboy."

"Okay, look at me," Penny took his chin and he forced himself to focus on her eyes and not drop his gaze to her nose, her lips, her chin. The uncertainty swimming in her expression was not one born of a worry about him as a husband or partner. It was something else, then. He frowned.

"Something big came up and I'm just a little worried how you and...everyone else is going to take it, okay? I don't know if we're ready for it and I need you to not freak out. Promise?"

"I can't promise," he mumbled dumbly, his lips too frightened to move properly.

"Okay, sure. I can't promise I won't cry and freak out, either." She laughed carefully and shook her head. Steeling herself for the boom, she released his chin and sat fully on his desk, crossing her legs as she rested his hip beside her, looking pale and anxious. "I missed a few days of my birth control not that long ago. I took the placebos the wrong week. It was apparently enough time for me to work what remained of the hormones out of my system because we," she gestured pointedly between the two of them, "are going to have a baby. I'm pregnant."

It took very little time for Sheldon to assess his reaction. A sudden intake of air, which he held for several seconds. His heart pounded audibly, the world around him bent and the sound of air breathing over his ears sounded stentorian. It crashed for a moment, stopped spinning, and he grinned stupidly at her before the reality of everything else collapsed on him.

_The apartment is too small—it's not the best environment for healthy brain development. I can't move now—the stress alone of Leonard, the wedding, Penny, and planning my next research expedition—good heavens! If I go to Germany to study with Stiglitz like I planned, I'll be gone when she has the baby and I won't begin imprinting with the baby until he or she is several months old._

_ And my mother! Please tell me she'll overlook the improvised timeline and be grateful she'll have a grandchild to bounce on her knee next Christmas..._

He lifted both hands and settled them heavily on her shoulders, stupid grin still in place. "Penny, this is _good_ news."

Not one to disappoint, Penny burst into tears and hugged him tightly, laughing despite her red, tear-streaked face of distress. "You're such a _whack-a-doodle,_ Sheldon!"

Puzzled, Sheldon patted her back, vaguely realizing she was getting her tears all over his favorite Flash t-shirt. "I don't understand—wasn't that what you wanted to hear? Reassurance? I should add that it was a genuine reaction."

"It was perfect," she assured him and hooked her legs around his knees, jerked him closer yet, wishing he didn't have work. She didn't like to admit it freely, but she did have a bit of a thing for semi-public places—the fear of getting caught. Sheldon, however, was not interested in spicing up his sex life at the moment. It was still rather new to him; it needed nothing to keep him fascinated.

Snapping herself out of her daze, Penny kissed his neck very loudly. "You never cease to surprise me, that's all. For someone who's so predictable, you sure do know how to throw a girl for a loop now and then."

"If I have no course of action planned in preparation for an event, then I can't behave predictably," he informed her softly, worrying his lip between his teeth. "Were you worried I would react negatively?"

"I didn't even know what I was worried about," she laughed at herself and hugged him closer still with both arms and legs this time, thanking her lucky stars she'd put on her jeans and not the skirt she'd been eying up in the closet. "It's just big. Everything about it."

"Astronomical," Sheldon agreed and sighed.

She enjoyed a peaceable silence for a spell, hardly believing he was so amicable when she'd not only interrupted his work, but informed him they would be having a wedding in three months with a visibly pregnant bride. Then again, Sheldon wouldn't have any expectations of thin, beautiful Penny in a streamlined dress with silk flowers pinned throughout her hair. He'd be happy if she showed up in a burlap sack so long as he could still exchange the rings with her and kiss her when the officiator indicated for him to do so. The most he'd had to say about the wedding in general, since the engagement party, anyway, was that he'd prefer it if she didn't wear a veil.

_"I might not have the cognitive ability to lift it out of the way for our first kiss as 'man and wife,' which I'm given to understand is a very important element of the ceremony."_

"All right, Sweetie. I should let you get back to work."

"You could stay a few minutes longer," he murmured back.

Penny smiled into his shoulder, hiding her glee for a moment. "I called in today. I can stick around."

He kissed her cheek and drew back, picking up his marker with a fleeting grin. "Good. Make yourself comfortable and try to be quiet."

Penny laughed at her shoes as he paced back over to his board. "Oh _boy._ It's just a pleasure to be here."

"Penny, _shh!_"


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Big bag of fail. 1) I haven't updated in forever. 2) This is (barring tragedy) the final chapter. 3) This is a hella short chapter.

Big bag of fail.

Good news: I will be uploading a one-shot soon after this, so check that out. Then, I hope to get cuh-rack-a-lackin' on the sequel to "The Naked Truth Reciprocation." Barring plot bunny interference, of course.

******

Sheldon looked up at his mother with a strange mixture of defiance and apology, still holding a bag of frozen peas to his eye. She put her hands on her hips, wanting to launch into a tirade at him―a groom wasn't allowed to have a black eye on his _wedding day,_ damnit―but she could only smile gently and let her tense shoulders collapse into a slouch.

"Oh, Shelly, honey...what did you do?"

He lowered the bag, glowering through his swollen eyelid, and dabbed away a spot of blood starting to trickle from the corner of his mouth. "One of Penny's meathead friends came uninvited and started to tell Penny what a terrible mistake she was making. I was next door to her hotel room and heard shouting, so I knocked to ask if everything was all right and _he_ answered the door. Punched me right in the head."

"Sheldon..."

He lifted the bag back over his eye and hunched a little lower in his seat. "Penny punched him back, but he didn't appear very concerned he may be striking a woman pregnant with _my_ child, so I..."

"Honey, you broke his nose."

"Yes, well, I've always had respectable upper body strength."

Mary Cooper sat next to him on the arm of the chair he grouchily occupied. "So he insulted your woman and your pride at the same time. And you thought he might hurt her and the baby?"

Sheldon began to knead his temples with the tips of four very long fingers. "I'm given to understand my reaction, however rash, is not uncommon. Normally I wouldn't react so violently, but I couldn't take the chance of him harming Penny in her state."

His mother clucked her tongue and gently touched the matching slap mark on his other cheek, the mark he wasn't that concerned about. "This looks more like her work."

"Pregnant or not, she can take care of herself, it would seem." He slapped his mother's hand away, short-tempered. "And I broke wedding tradition and saw the bride on the day of the wedding. She's furious."

Pawing through her purse urgently, Mary checked her delicate watch and cleared her throat. "Put the vegetables down, Shelly. I'm gonna do up your face so she doesn't punch you again the minute she's down the aisle, capiche?"

"Do up my―what are you saying?" Sheldon squirmed and then yelped as she threw the peas to the coffee table, seized his face in her hand, and brandished a sponge with liquid foundation like a sword. "Mom, no!"

"If you have a big fat black eye in your wedding photo, so help me _God,_ Sheldon, I will fix a chastity belt on you for as long as you shall live..."

_"You're_ not allowed to impose sexual punishments on me," he snarled back, but didn't try to wiggle away. She dabbed concealer and foundation under his eye, across his eyelid, and over the bruise on his cheek. The red mark on his other cheek appeared to be fading on its own, so she left it.

"Lip looks all right. Feel okay?"

"It wasn't my lip. I bit my tongue when he hit me," he mumbled in return. "Did you give her barrette?"

"Of course I did," she sounded almost offended he didn't have total confidence in her. "She doesn't think she'll be able to wear the shoes she picked out, anyway. I guess her feet are swelling up mighty bad."

"She's three months pregnant," Sheldon replied as if the phrase were self-explanatory. "Yet another reason you won't be imposing any chastity laws on our wedding night."

"With the mood she's in today, Sheldon--"

He shook his head, reaching up to straighten his tie and check once more that the Batman symbol at the very bottom was hidden by his suit coat. "Her hormonal levels have finally risen to a degree where her usual fatigue and nausea have been replaced by high energy and an inexcusable libido."

Mary got a far off look on her face. "Three months...I suppose that could be...oh, yeah..."

"Where _is_ everyone?"

"Waiting next door at the church."

Sheldon stood and smoothed his jacket with wide hands. "My punctuality is a point of pride, Mom."

"And Bob over there might have your head--"

"Ira," Sheldon corrected quietly, "understands the situation. Nevertheless, the ceremony shouldn't run late because one of Penny's ex-boyfriends thought now was a prudent time to entertain delusional rants."

"You didn't write your own vows, did you, sweetheart?" Mary asked in a curiously flat voice.

He rolled his eyes. "How cute―no."

"Penny doesn't do corny. I like that."

"Oh, she enjoys it immensely, just not on an important day. She understands image much better than I do, and apparently timelessness is inextricably linked to tradition and elegance. Her falling to a crying, emotional mess wouldn't look good in future years." He swallowed. "She doubted my ability to wax poetic, as well."

His mother's face softened. "I'm sure _she'd_ appreciate it if you waxed on and on about her symmetry and biologically sound figure."

"Exactly. This wedding, as Penny has explained it to me, is more for family than for us." He straightened his tie fanatically. "For all intents and purposes, Penny and I have entered into a binding contract―an extension of our relationship."

"It'll feel different after the ceremony. Trust me."

He simply nodded in reply. When things were finally settled and he could safely take his spot at the altar beside his groomsmen, he started to relax, and then grow nervous in a new way. Leonard assured him more than once that the bruise and swelling weren't terribly noticeable, but he still fretted. He could smell the telltale scent of Howard's cologne from where he stood, but it didn't bother him as much as the pungent lavender sprigs sprinkled all over the church. He felt, as he always had in churches, like the weight of the world was slowly settling on him.

"Stop slouching," Leonard hissed and Sheldon pulled his shoulders back, standing proud. He waited patiently, trying not to look too bored, and found snapshots forming where normally he'd attentively record his every reaction.

Penny entered in a glorious crescendo of music, feet sliding as her audience stood. Her father handed her to Sheldon, who could only blink at her at first, unable to smile, even as she put a hand protectively on her belly for a moment as she handed her flowers away to one of her bridesmaids. Someone cried loudly―Sheldon suspected Raj.

He spoke in assured, soft tones. She did the same and they both seemed so oblivious, certain, _ready._ Andika, trembling in the long line of bridesmaids, bowed her head and cried in earnest when Sheldon looked around curiously at all the faces watching Penny slide a wedding band he didn't particularly care for onto his finger.

Kissing her in front of their families posed a serious risk for Sheldon's sanity. He'd agonized with anyone who cared to listen about duration, intensity, and other meaningless variables. Penny had urged him to practice, but he quickly discovered she was coercing intimacy from him. While that was fine, he didn't appreciate her deception, despite her laughing it off.

Luckily there was no veil. He had her hands in his, which felt a bit too polite considering the bump in her gown, but he kept his fingers tangled in hers, leaned down, and closed his eyes, kissing her. And she sighed like he'd stolen her very breath from her and he blushed, knowing the closet romantic in him wanted to make this moment for them.

But it wasn't, as much as they daydreamed as children it might be. Penny had whispered these things to him late in the night after coming back from volunteer hours at a women's shelter in the area.

"These things aren't for us. We just smile and nod through the day, make sure it's an appropriate expression, something to remember fondly―an ideal we couldn't have elsewhere. It's peace of mind, for my dad, for your mom, for everyone. And then, we drive off into the sunset together and, if I'm not a whale by then, we have _our_ moment. Like that first night at my parents' farm."

Sheldon, who told everyone the exact minutia of his schedule down to his bowel movements, appreciated this private sector of his life. That when he wrapped his arms around Penny and whispered he loved her and she played her fingers over the button on his khakis that he never had to breathe a word of it. That he could look at her over the top of his computer monitor and see a faint dusting of him over every particle of her being. She never whispered about crouching on the roof under an umbrella watching the lightning storms in the distance, or how hard she'd cried when the very fame monster that had lifted her onto the shoulders of giants had dragged her name through the mud and made her relive her ordeal.

Sheldon relaxed and released her from the kiss. "I love you."

"Love you back," she replied dutifully and the next time Sheldon took a moment to step away from himself and remember any significant detail, he was pressing his nose into her neck and swaying with his barefoot bride in a reception hall that stank of lavender and vodka toasts for a couple who had absconded from their own wedding into a private sphere.

************

Sheldon received the call while Penny wailed from the bathroom that she wanted to go to the beach _so_ badly and hated everything about her bathing suits, both bikini styled and maternity styled. She wanted to go in her sweats. Sheldon softly urged her to give up the whole notion, which earned him a goggle-eyed stare of dismay.

So he answered his phone, eager for the chance to duck away from her indecision. It didn't matter she had a strict "No-Business-Calls-While-Honeymooning" policy. He had never turned down an offer from work, unless it was beneath him.

"Dr. Cooper?"

"Speaking," he answered curtly.

"Since you're away on your honeymoon, the committee called me to have me track you down..."

"Committee?"

"You were nominated for the Nobel Prize in physics."

Sheldon squinted at the wall. "A cruel prank, indeed. They don't release the names of nominees, not for many, _many_ years after the prize year."

"Well, the reason I can tell _you_ is you've _won_ the prize this year."

Sheldon expected he'd be in his office, still working tirelessly on some other theory or theorem, but here he was, wearing Batman swim trunks, on a beach in Mexico. He felt mildly ashamed, as a scientist. As a man, however, he could take a deep breath and realize he now had: reached every goal he set for himself career-wise just short of unequivocally proving String Theory, married a beautiful woman who loved him because of and despite his quirks, and was about to have a baby with said woman.

"Oh my," he managed to reply at last.

"Congratulations. I figured you'd want to know right away. The award won't be presented to you, and you won't be able to tell anyone outside of your immediate family until December, but..."

"Thank you," Sheldon murmured, and hung up guiltily as Penny, wearing one of his shirts over her bikini grumpily, put her hands on her hips and stood menacingly in the bathroom doorway.

"One of you little eye-tie grad students need help with an Oppenheimer something or other?"

She knew it was something big when he simply smiled at her, rather than criticizing her humble understanding of whoever this Oppenheimer guy was. Sliding his phone into his pocket, he scurried over to her and wrapped a tight hug around her shoulders, grinning like a fool for what felt like the thousandth time in the past few days. Since he'd met Penny, he had to admit he'd both frowned and laughed more. She made him _feel_ more, period.

"You get that computer time you wanted?" she asked, venturing a guess into his chest.

He shook his head, pulling her away and holding her at arm's length, that peculiar squeak coming into his voice as he trembled and carefully explained to her what the president of the university had just told him. Penny didn't disappoint him; the moment the news left his lips, she was kissing them, and then she was dancing around in circles, wagging her fingers in the air. She feigned jealousy that it all seemed to be going so well for him, but could only laugh when he leveled her with an unimpressed glower, as if reminding her of all her blessings.

Hours later, when they had yet to break in their personal slice of the beachfront, Penny watched him making phone calls to his family, looking tired but immensely pleased. A touch of worry would creep into his face now and then, when his mother or sister was going on and on about something he couldn't interest himself in for more than a few seconds. He finally got to talk to his grandmother, and Penny watched the worry completely take over for almost a minute before he hung up and, trembling, ran his fingers over his mouth.

"Sheldon?"

"I'm not...sure what I'll do now. I mean, my entire life I've desired this accomplishment."

Penny scrabbled wildly with several ideas bouncing around her head. "Well," she dragged the word out slowly, unsurely. "Didn't that Smoot guy win the Nobel Prize? You could do what he does; present at symposiums and give lectures."

"I much prefer the research," he grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Okay, well, you're a Nobel winner, Sheldon. You can pretty much do whatever you want, right?"

"Nobel Laureate," he corrected half-heartedly. "Did you bring any bottled water?"

"For the hundredth time, you can buy bottled water here in Mexico―most of it was probably bottled in the United States, anyway."

Sheldon relaxed at the slight edge in her voice. Lately he'd been giving up on their mild tiffs only a fraction of the way in. It was his way of making sure they hadn't changed too terribly much. He didn't mind her steadily increasing patience, nor did she mind his. But he did get a sick, cheap sort of thrill when he'd once again try to talk her into buying menstrual supplies in bulk, or propose adopting a second set of measuring cups and utensils from their kitchen into urine cups and enemas. _Besides,_ he lied to himself, _it's only practical to have two sets now that Penny is my wife and I have a vested interest in her health._

That thought alone startled him. _I have now become two things I never expected or particularly wanted for myself until I met Penny and started that glacial change. If change is possible in human beings, and I know it is, now, then it must happen so slowly. It must happen slowly so the changes stay―it's just an adjustment of a lifetime routine. Something much bigger than my simple routine, which is only designed for the attainment of the Nobel prize, my health, and optimal efficiency._

_ I am now a husband. I am, or at the very least am about to be, a father. Glacially, without any hint to me that things were shifting, I arrive here._

"My husband, the Nobel Laureate," Penny teased softly. "Do I get to go to that fancy ball like in _A Beautiful Mind_ and be part of your speech and everything?"

Sheldon nodded vacantly. "Provided the doctor says it's all right for you to fly so late in your pregnancy, I'd like you to be there. I don't know how much time I'll devote to thanking my family; the speech should really encompass a great deal."

"Sweetie, you really ought to have someone help you with it. I know you're brilliant and everything, but sounding humble, grateful, and eloquent all at once is a chore for anybody." She smoothed a hand over his bare back and tried to tug him back into the pillows without startling him. "Then again," she added as an afterthought, "with you winning and all, maybe you'll be able to devote more of your time to these pesky social conventions I keep telling you about?"

Sheldon smiled at her very carefully over his shoulder. "I understand. It's my major accomplishment and my head can't get too big. Knock me a down a few, then. I feel like I'm on top of the world."

"You _were_ once," Penny sighed softly and rubbed a hand over her belly thoughtlessly. "Isn't it better here?"

Finally easing back into the bed, he turned on his side and gathered her loosely in his arms, sighing into her hair as she snuggled in as deeply as she could to his neck.

"Penny, we have to start planning our Comic-Con costumes for next year."

"Sheldon, you have to finish painting the nursery and putting up the curtains before I'll even consider looking at fabric swatches."

Sheldon's nose wrinkled. "Fine."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

*************

In early December, before he had to make his appearance in Sweden to accept his award, Cal-Tech threw him a departmental party, which then went campus-wide. Everyone mingled freely in the largest space available in the main building on the campus. Sheldon, still sort of in limbo, shook his head and shrugged, one hand on a glass of champagne, the other either holding onto Penny's fingers or her purse.

When Leonard arrived, flanked by a beautiful blonde and her older sister, he had to flag Howard down to be admitted to the party, since he no longer had credentials there. Still, after a few minutes of very polite argument, he slipped into the main dining hall and saw the spreads of people everywhere, all celebrating Sheldon's accomplishment. In a picture of grace, beauty, and pride, Penny was in the center of the room wearing a dusky, muted red dress that sank all the way to the floor but didn't trip up her satin heels. Her hair was shorter now, just a little longer than her chin, and half pinned back, the rest falling in loose, comfortable waves. He could imagine the smell of vanilla floating behind her as she breezed through the room.

But she twirled, belly on display, with none other than Dr. Cooper, who was laughing into his shoes whenever possible, too pleased to do much more than nod at offers for more champagne, dance with his new bride, and think about what he wanted to research next.

Penny spotted him first and pulled Sheldon in for a hug to end the dance, kissing his cheek and leaving a bright red lipstick mark. She pulled her husband, a frozen smile on his boyish face, over to the doorway where Leonard and his two female companions waited.

"Leonard!"

He stepped forward, all smiles, and hugged Penny gingerly, blushing when she seized his wrist and made him feel where Baby Cooper was tap-dancing against the side of her rounded tummy. Sheldon, face flushed from the champagne and glory, bent and hugged Leonard next, bashfully sputtering that he hadn't realized how much Leonard's presence would be missed.

"I assumed with Penny moving in I'd be quite busy, but I do pine for the days of _Battlestar Galactica_ on DVD and movie-marathons."

Leonard's smile was too big for simple happiness. Penny watched, waiting for him to finally tip and spill the beans. Never one to disappoint, Leonard finally shuffled a little and then drew himself up to his full height.

"I got a research grant for some work in Austria. I need five others for the summer, and then I'll have the university at my disposal. If you, Koothrapalli, and Wolowitz want to be three of my five this summer, that can be arranged. It's dark matter detection and light fractures when approaching an event horizon, so it might not be your cup of tea, Sheldon, but--"

"I'd love to, Leonard. By summer I should be able to travel. Penny may be able to make a trip, too, and bring..." He tossed a glance at Penny.

"I love to travel. It'll be up to the Whack-a-Doodle here if the baby gets to ride on an airplane to visit Daddy." Penny smiled, lifting her eyebrows. "That's great, Leonard. Who are your friends, though?"

"Oh, this is Isla and Linnea." Leonard introduced carefully, drawing the shorter of the two sisters forward with a delicate touch. "Isla, Linnea, this is Dr. and Mrs. Cooper―Sheldon and Penny."

Their Austrian accents had Penny's cheeks twitching up earnest delight as they crept forward and shook her hand, hugged her, bashfully asked to touch her belly, and then turned their attention to Sheldon, upon whom they heaped as many compliments as they could, leaving him blushing terribly and Penny grinning like a mad fool. After finishing his next glass of champagne, Sheldon sat beside Penny at the nearest table.

"Do you think Leonard's here because he had something to do with you winning?" Penny asked shyly. "I can't help but think even if nothing had happened to make him move to New Jersey to teach he wouldn't have made time to fly out here and celebrate your Nobel Prize."

Sheldon shrugged, because he honestly couldn't remember agreeing to future obligations in the event that they did not live together. They may have had a roommate agreement, but no stand-alone friendship contract. Nothing that said once their time living together had ended they would no longer speak to one another.

Intensely grateful for the fact Leonard was trying, in whatever way he was, Sheldon looked up and beamed at his friend as he approached their table, hands in pocket. "Leonard, thank you for coming," he said in that soft way of his, the one that said he had caught on to the potential solemnity in the moment and decided to milk it.

Leonard smiled back, looking relaxed, happy somehow. "You're welcome, buddy. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

So pleased with how the past year had played out for him, Sheldon didn't bother to say a word about the nonsensical phrase Leonard had just uttered. Grinning like a fool at nothing in particular, Sheldon accepted another glass of champagne from a passing waitress and sighed into it, realizing Penny was watching him carefully.

"I'm tipsy," he announced then, deciding to get the elephant out of the room, and Penny burst into giggles as she leaned to kiss his cheek. "It's not something to _reward,_ Penny!"

She swiped her thumb over his cheek, helplessly admiring everything about him in that instant, and shrugged helplessly, feeling the ever-present hormone surge that made her eyes prickle almost a dozen times a day, it seemed. "I know, but not everyone is trying to modify others' behavior so it suits them. I just remembered I loved you."

Sheldon hesitated, then ducked his face. "Oh."

Sensing where his mind had gone, she kissed his cheek again. "I love you."

"You don't mind coupling a physical reminder with a verbal one?"

"Way ahead of you; I promise."

Sheldon relaxed a little, but then tightened again and affixed her with a suspicious stare. "Are you playing a joke on me?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, Sweetie. Why would I? It's not like you _get_ them most of the time," she grumbled privately to herself.

Choosing to ignore her yet again, letting her little growls at him slide, he slid a little closer, tilting his head, his speech just a little too Texan for his usual self. "Because I can't help but think this is all some elaborate rug about to be yanked out from under my feet. Penny, on top of everything else..."

She was simultaneously pitying him, loving him, wanting him, and weary of him she almost wilted. Instead, tilting her head and pushing her lips out a little to show her sadness, she shook her head. "Sheldon, honey...no. I love you. I'm absolutely not lying about that. As for the rest of it..."

His eyes widened for a moment, but he surprised her again and let out a little breath, frowning. "Well, I suppose if I had to _choose_ one..."

Not the Nobel (though she suspected he hadn't thought the Nobel _could_ be faked to this degree). He was most concerned with losing her. She let the hormones and the melting start in, not bothering to tell Sheldon the problem, simply sobbing silently into his neck. He held her, rocking a little, looking baffled.

Penny had done this once before, to her father. She had clung to him and hugged so tight he'd begged her to stop. She'd been waiting for the school bus when she realized it was his birthday and he was turning 45. With her rudimentary math skills, she soon realized he was well over _middle-aged_ and that he was now more than half as old as he'd probably _ever_ be. The thought strangled her, constricted her, and when she climbed on his lap and cried, she wasn't even able to tell him what was wrong she was so overcome with sadness at the thought of him passing on.

Now, at her husband's celebratory banquet for the highest possible achievement in physics, she clung to Sheldon and couldn't even begin to tell him what was just so good about _everything._


End file.
